


Broken Underneath

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Series: Ready For The Siege [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Dom/sub, Domme Natasha Romanov, F/M, Femdom, Loki Has Issues, Manipulative Loki, Mindfuck, Natasha isn't very subby, Pegging, Sex Magic, Sub Loki, magical sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-02 05:30:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1053061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki might have had some plans for Natasha, but that didn't mean he didn't intend to have a little fun with her first. It was only too bad that she didn't figure that out until it was far too late.</p><p> </p><p>Incorporates the prompts <a href="http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/6565.html?thread=12168613#t12168613">I'd love to see Loki bring someone right to the edge again and again, but never letting them come. Not even when they're a quivering, whimpering mess, begging him for release</a> and <a href="http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/5102.html?thread=5173230#t5173230">Loki knows all of Natasha's secrets, and uses them to break her down completely. I want pyschological torture and Loki being relentless and cruel.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Glittering Shards of Ice

Loki had contrived to approach Thor, Jane Foster, Sif and the Warriors Three until glamour, and Natasha had revealed the truth. He had grabbed her and moved her through reality to some kind of hideaway. It was chilly, the walls made of solid ice, and no apparent vents or exits other than the interdimensional portal that Loki had used to bring them both there. Natasha looked slowly at the room, noting the elaborate silver furniture, furs and throw rugs. Silver candelabra held white taper candles, and there was a roaring fire in the icy hearth. On either side of the fireplace were massive ice shelves with leather bound books, scrolls and ornate boxes. A table to the side was weighted down with numerous ink pots and quills, rolled scrolls and parchment, more stacks of books. It was cozy and old fashioned in appearance, reminding Natasha of films taking place in Victorian drawing rooms or libraries.

Clint had been right about Loki isolating her from the rest of SHIELD operatives. _He's isolating you. Why?_

"This is your home," Natasha murmured, looking at Loki's manic grin. His eyes glittered as his lips stretched wide, revealing his teeth. The shadows playing over his face made him look almost sickly, as if it had cost him far too much to bring her here.

He didn't need the Tesseract for travel, that was clear. The cost in magic wasn't nearly as much as Thor had assumed it to be, but it was not as simple as Loki had wanted her to think. Natasha could see the strain in him, the weary set to his shoulders now that he didn't have to put on a show for the Asgardians.

"I did say 'welcome home,' did I not?" Loki asked, stepping closer.

Natasha didn't back down, though there was a slight _frisson_ of fear rolling down her spine. "Yes, but it's different if this is _your_ home, or if it's a place where you intend to keep me locked away."

"Why would I do that?" he asked, an edge to his voice. Loki reached out and ran his fingers along the curve of her cheek. Natasha remained very still, her gaze level as he touched her. "Why would I want you locked away? It's a terrible thing to do to someone, isn't it?"

He had been magically gagged and bound after the Battle of New York. Thor would never speak of his imprisonment on Asgard, and neither would the other Asgardians. They hadn't been terribly surprised when he began showing up on Earth, when agents of Hydra began using his name as a recruiting tactic. Perhaps they never thought Loki could stay in captivity. Either way, Natasha didn't think that Loki departed from Asgard on good terms. She wouldn't be surprised if they had tried isolating him.

"Depends on whether or not they like solitude, isn't it?" Natasha asked in a neutral tone, mimicking the cadence of his speech slightly. It was just enough to appear as though she understood him, but not enough to be mocking.

Loki's touch firmed on her skin slightly, and his fingers traced the curve of her jaw. "Quiet doesn't bother you," he murmured, as if musing aloud. "You're content with stillness. But solitude is different. _Alone_ is altogether a different creature."

"Did they plan to leave you in isolation in Asgard?" Natasha asked quietly, eyes locked to his.

He stayed very still, but there was a slight twitch of displeasure in the corner of his mouth after a moment. "What they planned for me and what I plan to do rarely coincide."

"I didn't ask you what happened with that," Natasha said slowly.

His hand fell from her jaw to her shoulder, and there was a hard look in his eyes. He didn't make any other move, but Natasha still saw it as a warning that his mercurial moods were about to shift rather violently. "No, you did not."

"Is this going to be an additional problem for you?"

Loki had apparently expected her to follow up with a question about how he escaped Asgardian justice, so this threw him a little. "Is what going to be an additional problem?"

"You disappeared then, and now you've disappeared with me in tow. Is this something else that they're going to count against you?"

He laughed and backed away a little, arms at his sides. He sounded amused, at least, and started to unbuckle his vambraces. If he was making himself at home, he had to be comfortable. This line of inquiry was making him feel clever and strong. That would help her survive this, for certain, but it didn't necessarily make him want to set her free. Still, she had her mental profile of what she knew of him. In certain things, he still behaved in a very painfully human way. She just had to factor in magic, godlike strength and technology that was beyond current capabilities. In time, she could probably figure that out, just as she had figured out the Chitauri energy staves. It was only a matter of time.

Moving slowly and methodically, Loki removed the vambraces and carefully put them on a shelf near other armor pieces. "Everything counts against me, little spider," he said finally, voice low and a little rough.

Natasha strode forward as he reached up to undo a buckle at his shoulder. "It's caught," she said when their fingers tangled together. He watched her with narrowed eyes as she pulled the leather through the buckle, but she made no untoward moves.

"Do you think you can change me?" Loki asked, lips curling into a sardonic smile.

"If it hasn't happened yet in thousands of years, I doubt my lifetime could do it."

He laughed, moving away to remove the rest of his armor. "Oh, yes, this is better."

"What is?" Natasha asked, getting the feeling she was missing a large piece of the puzzle.

"I was going to leave you elsewhere on Yggdrasil, have you match wits with the creatures in between the branches." Now there was an edge to his expression that seemed to hint at darkness and madness, both of which had liberally touched Loki. "But you altered my course as we traveled, and the safest thing to do was to bring you here."

Natasha made a mental note to try to avoid changing his destinations as they traveled via portal. For all she knew, they could have landed somewhere with no air.

"What will you do now? I'm sure Thor and the others will have reported on my absence."

Loki grinned at her, manic menace in his posture. "I'm counting on it, little spider. Let them try to find me. They can't."

"Did you mean to keep me here forever?" she asked mildly, as if his answer didn't matter.

That gave him pause; he clearly hadn't thought this far ahead.

After a moment, he pointed to a pile of furs in the corner of the room. "If you're in need of rest, you may lie there."

"Clothing? Food? Bathroom?" she asked, an eyebrow raised. "Unlike you, I can't rely on magic to take care of those kinds of necessities."

Loki clenched his jaw a little. "Those will be attended to as necessary."

Natasha shrugged, then started to strip. "It's necessary. I had been heading to the Tower because I have rooms there, and was intending on taking a bath."

He watched her, lips pressed together tightly. She stood before him when naked, her clothes scattered on the floor around her. Chin tilted up, she gave him a level look. "Are you simply going to stare? Or do I get a bath?"

Coming to a decision, Loki nodded and let his breath out in a slow, controlled breath. He was in front of her in four strides, the rest of his armor disappearing between steps. "You don't fear me," he said in a low voice as he grasped her arms. "Why don't you fear me?"

 _Because this isn't the first time I've dealt with dangerous men with adoption issues_ would not be received very well, so Natasha merely leaned in slightly, lips an inch from his. "There's still something you want from me."

"If I want to kill you?" he challenged.

Natasha shook her head sharply. "If you planned to kill me, it wouldn't be here. Not in your home, not like this."

Loki abruptly let go of her and moved to the side of the room, pulling aside a tapestry that she didn't get a chance to really look at before. "You may bathe here. I have no clothes for you, but perhaps simple robes may do."

The bathing room was large and as exquisitely done as the sitting room. She might have been captured, but at least it was in style this time. "Thank you," she said politely with a smile. He watched her move around the space, figuring out how to draw a scented bath, not making any move to help her. When she sank beneath the surface of the warm water, Loki turned away. She caught sight of a troubled expression, and thought perhaps that he was trying to rearrange plans that he had already made.

She still had to entice him to work with SHIELD. Hopefully she could get his plans to coincide with the directives Fury had given her.

If she couldn't, she was in deep trouble.

***

Natasha had worn Loki's dark green silk robe and bundled up beneath the furs once she had finished with her bath. The trickster himself was nowhere to be seen, and there was little to glean from looking at the shelves. Most of the writing was runic, and she had never learned those languages. The furs were warm and soft, comforting. It occurred to her that he reveled in sensory input, different textures and temperatures. She remembered a similar experience when she first escaped the Red Room, though she had been trying to figure out what _she_ liked rather than what a construct's memory had liked. It was a sign of sensory deprivation at some point for Loki, she was sure. Perhaps that time in Asgard he didn't want to talk about.

She dozed off, and when she woke, Loki was in the room. He was at the desk, reading a scroll with a frown pulling at his features. When he noticed she was stirring, he put the scroll down and came to sit beside her. Without saying anything, Loki merely stroked her hair gently, his gaze fixed on the fireplace.

"You disturbed nothing here but my bed," he said slowly.

"Did you want me to?" Natasha asked, shifting slightly to stretch.

Loki turned his head and watched the movement avidly. He stopped stroking her hair and pulled at the tie holding the robe together. "Perhaps I thought you might try something underhanded, thinking it would hurt me."

He was testing her, much in the same way that she might have done in his place. Natasha shrugged, watching his eyes track the movement of her breasts. "Would that really harm you?"

Something shifted in his features, the barest of tightening in his jaw. Oh yes, it would have hurt him. This was his _home,_ after all. These were his things, his secrets that he jealously hoarded away from Thor and his friends. This was a place where Loki could hide and lick his wounds, salvage his tattered pride and plan grandiose plots to feel self important. It would have hurt him greatly to see evidence that she had pawed through his things, upset his order, invading his sense of space.

She didn't have to go through his things to see how he felt. She was still missing the _why_ of it, why he was doing these things _now._ He was playing some kind of long game, and she couldn't see all of the desires that drove him to such lengths.

"You're mortal," Loki said finally, moving to rest his hand in the valley between her breasts. He could probably feel her heartbeat, still steady in her chest.

He was lonely and proud, not above using others for his own ends. She could see that clearly, though she wasn't sure which ends he was planning to use her for.

There was the sensation of fullness as a ghostly cock slid into her, then more pressure at her clit in a rhythmic motion. Loki grinned at Natasha's attempt to hide her surprise, then bent down to take a breast into his mouth. She grabbed a fistful of his dark hair in her hand, hissing in pleasure. "That's cheating."

"Certainly not," he replied, affronted, as he lifted his head to stare at her. "Magic is simply an extension of my will. It's my presence, my essence of spirit." He let his lower lip rub against her peaked nipple. "Doesn't it feel like me, still?"

Natasha gasped and jerked as the rhythm inside her changed, becoming more forceful. It did, sort of, but there was too much to take in at once. She let out a soft moan and tugged on his hair, bringing his mouth up to hers. His lips were soft and unhurried against hers, while the magic pressed into her harder and faster. Her hips jerked and she could feel her own slick wetness from the contact. Loki grasped a breast and rolled the nipple between his fingers, adding another facet of pleasure. It sent her over the edge, and she came apart in his hands. Only then did the magic seem to dissipate, leaving behind a throbbing ache.

Loki simply knelt there beside her, looking over her naked body. After a while she felt the chill from the icy room, and there was a hint of a smile on his lips at the sight of gooseflesh rising. "You are so fragile, yet you don't seem to realize it."

"Everyone has a weakness."

"Yes, they do," he replied easily. She wondered what he was thinking of, staring down at her in that way. It looked as though he was trying to puzzle her out, that he couldn't quite figure out what to do with her.

She understood the feeling, being on the receiving end of that look so often.

He was no stranger to silence, and saw no need to fill it the way stupid politicos often did. It didn't bother him that the conversation petered out, no explanation forthcoming. Natasha wondered if she was giving anything away, if anything she was learning about him was even valid. Fury didn't seem to care one way or another, as long as she brought back results. It had always been about getting results.

Reaching out, Natasha pulled him down to the furs. "You need to keep me warm."

"Oh, I _need_ to?"

"You're the one that brought me here."

"You can't work the _seidr_ on your own, of course I did."

Natasha merely lofted an eyebrow at him. "You're responsible."

He gave a soft huff of annoyance. "Oh, very well."

Loki was good at cuddling, she had to give him that. He wasn't terribly warm, but he definitely kept the chill from her skin as he wrapped himself around her. The fabric of his loose clothing was soft, almost like fine silk, and was like a gentle caress against her. He stroked her hair, curling strands of it around his long fingers. Natasha watched his expression, never for a moment thinking he was as unguarded as he looked. She was something like a pet to him, something to explore and play with, then cast aside. But at the same time, the way he held onto her solidified the observation that he was lonely. He was playing at being a god, a ruler of multiple realms, but he hid here in a pocket dimension with her. There weren't adoring masses waiting for him, just more enemies scattered in the cosmos calling for his blood.

He obviously liked the challenge of besting them, of proving himself clever with his machinations. A puppeteer of sorts, though every puppeteer needed an audience to play for. Thor was obviously a poor choice, since Loki often pulled his strings as well. Natasha doubted that she was his chosen audience either.

"What is it that you want?" she asked him finally. Allusions wouldn't work, so she might as well flatter his ego and cave in.

Lips curled slightly in amusement. "Loyal subjects, power, fame, knowledge... The usual sorts of things a crazed tyrant would like."

He remembered the words she had thrown at him. Oh, that must have hurt his ego then. She would have to remember that.

"What if you could get that without resorting to destroying entire worlds?"

"But where is the fun in that?"

"Just suppose," Natasha insisted.

Loki laughed. "Your masters pull your strings, little spider. I think you've forgotten that."

"Everyone has some. Who pulls _your_ strings?"

He froze for a fraction of a second, a movement she would have missed if she wasn't so thoroughly wrapped up in his arms. Someone indeed had been pulling his strings, perhaps one of the many intergalactic enemies calling for his blood. Clint had alluded to that, which had enraged him weeks ago.

She risked a touch to his chin with her fingertips. "It's not always necessary to fight them alone. Sometimes you can ask for help."

"That always comes with a heavy price."

"You have to decide if it's worth paying."

Loki turned slightly, his interest in this conversation already waning. She shut her lips and let herself settle into his embrace. His heart still beat erratically near her ear. It was impossible to tell if it was anxiety, anticipation or desire. There was possibly no distinction for him, just the thrill of movement and violence, action and reaction, push and pull, utter chaos shattering through order.

Natasha would have to wait and see what happened.

***

"Do you need to visit your keepers?" Loki asked abruptly. Natasha had no idea how much time had passed in this little hideaway. Food simply appeared when she was hungry, and there were no external cues indicating the passage of time.

"How long have we been here?" she asked in return, eyebrow raised. She stretched, seeing him track her movement out of the corner of her eye. With the chill of the room, her nipples were taut points easily visible through the green silk robe. "I had a day off before I had to check in."

Loki's lips twitched into a smile as she turned to face him. "Only a day?"

"Why?"

He was lounging at the desk, reading through one of the thick volumes piled onto it and occasionally taking notes on a piece of parchment with a quill. This was his form of relaxing, so he was more simply dressed in loose fitting black trousers and a gray shirt that laced up at the throat. Natasha knew better than to think he wasn't dangerous, even though he looked rather tranquil. The charming smile on his face would fool anyone unfamiliar with him.

"Time passes differently here. Its ebb and flow would be difficult for your mortal mind to fathom properly," he added, an unctuous note to his voice.

Natasha repressed the urge to roll her eyes at him. "So how much time had passed?"

"Close to a week."

A week. Thor and the others had witnessed her abduction and likely thought she was dead. Clint might be trying to light into Fury for this. Clint wouldn't want to believe that Loki had killed her, if only for personal reasons. They needed each other far too much for death to be a viable ending for either of them. No, he would be looking everywhere and probably begging Thor to contact any Asgardian mages to try to find her.

Fury might actually think she was dead. He might not appear dismayed at that development, but he played his cards close to his vest. Natasha was fairly certain that he appreciated her work. He trusted her, and he was one of the few that she trusted implicitly. His opinion was one of the few that mattered to her, and she would never betray that trust. It had been too hard won to throw away, and she didn't belong anywhere else anymore.

"A week," Natasha echoed, when Loki clearly expected an answer from her. He was watching her too avidly, likely wanting to see her upset. Her features were neutral, not giving him the response that he was looking for.

"They will think the worst of you, poor child. You proved me false, and I ran off with you."

Natasha rolled her shoulders and neck in an easy stretch, hiding the shudder that threatened to roll down her spine. There was still a simmering anger present, and she didn't know if it was directed at her deliberately or simply because she was there. "Then they think the worst of me," she said in a careless tone. "It's happened before."

Loki was watching her intently, and not just for the play of her body as she moved. "Has it?"

"Yes," she said simply, not feeling the need to elaborate.

He stared at her, quill clutched tightly in his hand. "And?"

"And what?" she asked innocently, turning to face him with her head cocked to the side.

"You are not a simpering idiot. How did they stop believing the worst of you?"

"Some never stopped," Natasha said simply, shrugging. "It happens in my line of work."

They stared at each other, and Loki carefully put his quill down before he could break it. "It happens," he echoed slowly. "Does it truly not matter what others think of you?"

"Why should it? I know the truth."

It wasn't a complete lie. There were simply very few people that she actually cared about, but Loki didn't need to know the details. Her apparent indifference seemed to be a troubling enough concept for him to grasp.

Loki stood and approached her, movements stiff and jerky. "What is your truth, then, little spider?" he asked, reaching between them to pull the robe's tie free. "What convenient lie would you tell me, thinking me a fool?"

"You are many things, Loki, but you are not a fool."

His smile was an aggressive baring of teeth as the robe slipped from her shoulders. Pushing it down, Loki didn't bother to track the movement of the silk. "Are you certain?"

"I would wager my life on that."

"And that is one of the few things you truly value, isn't it?"

"It's mine," she murmured softly, letting her hand slide down the soft fabric of his shirt. She didn't want to talk about how the Red Room created personality templates for her to become prior to missions. When she first left them, she had been empty and unsure of who she was. By now, she had built up a life that was _Natasha Romanoff,_ and it was completely hers. No one else created that personality, and she liked it that way.

"You only value what is truly yours," Loki observed.

Natasha nodded, somewhat uncomfortable with how much of her he could see. "I belong to no one else."

"Are you certain of that, little spider? Your keepers think they control you. You dance to their tune, follow their bidding."

"I follow the rules that suit me."

Loki pulled her body against his, fingers pressed tightly to her lower back. "And what are those?" he purred. "You were chasing at shadows. You were meant to lure me in."

"They have resources in their realm," she replied evenly. "How else do you plan to get what you want? You'll need to use the opportunities presented to you."

"Oh, I see many opportunities," he murmured, just before he bent his head down to kiss her roughly. Natasha softened against him, molding her body to his and opening her lips. Loki's tongue darted into her mouth immediately, probing at the recesses of her mouth and licking at her teeth. He started walking backward, toward his desk, and Natasha stumbled forward on the tips of her toes.

Without a word, he broke the kiss to bend Natasha over the writing desk, her bare torso and cheek pressed against the cold material. "I think you enjoy this particular opportunity," Loki murmured before licking his fingers. He slid them through her folds, then inside of her. He growled, a low contented sound, and worked his fingers in and out of her. Natasha sighed, tilting her hips back toward him. "Yes, you do," Loki growled. "A pretty little pet, a plaything all my own," he continued. She wished he would shut his mouth and get on with it already.

She scrabbled for purchase against the sides of the desk as Loki slammed into her repeatedly, filling her with every delicious thrust. Piles of books and parchment slid off the desk as it moved, and a bottle of ink on the other side toppled over, spilling its contents across the edge of the desk and onto the floor. The ink glittered a little in the wan light, as if there had been magic contained within it, as if writing magic spells involved more than simply taking a quill to parchment.

It was easy to focus on those things, on the cold seeping into her skin or the feel of his clothing when it touched her backside. That allowed her to divorce her mind from the sensations flooding through her. Seeing her like this was important to Loki, and she played up her gasps and moans for his sake. Oh, it certainly felt good, and he knew how to pleasure a woman if he put his mind to it. But he wanted to possess her, body and soul, and needed to feel in control. She could see the signs of it; in that, he was just like every other man she'd had to manipulate over the years. Loki called himself a god and he needed to feel as if he was.

Fingers rough against her skin, Loki pulled at her hips with each thrust. He needed to mark her, needed to show dominance in this moment.

She let him, but once he sagged against her body with his release, she moved. Startled, Loki couldn't stop her from twisting around him and flipping him onto his back. Natasha straddled his body and slid onto his cock. When he reached up for her, she shook her head and smirked. "Do I need to tie you down?" she taunted, a sultry look in her eye.

Loki laughed. "Do your worst, little spider."

Laughing, Natasha moved over him, practically using him like a toy. His amusement with her was obvious, and he fondled her breasts as she bounced on his cock and made little gasping sighs of pleasure. When she came, she slowed and leaned forward, her hands against his shoulders for balance. "I'm done now," she announced unnecessarily.

"That was hardly torturous," he scoffed.

"It wasn't meant to be. I never said I'd actually do my worst, you just assumed I would."

As Loki laughed, Natasha smiled. Let him think he was in control. Let him think he had her bound to him through sex and pleasure.

It didn't have to be the truth. She never operated well in the open anyway.

After cleaning them off with magic, Loki presented Natasha with a crystal pendant as well as her clothes. The pendant was a clear stone with a while milky cloud in the center of it. "If you need to return before I come for you, break this. The mist will transport you back here."

"Will you miss me, then?" she asked softly.

His smile was distant, and he hung the chain around her neck. The pendant hung between her breasts and felt as cold as the walls of the hideaway or the desk she had just been pressed up against. "You do not possess any trace of the _seidr._ You won't find me otherwise."

She cupped his cheek with a hand. "You'll miss me," she murmured, leaning in to press a kiss to his lips. "I'll think of you."

Loki grasped her by the throat and pulled her back in for a desperate, possessive kiss. "Do so," he said, then let her go abruptly. His expression shifted to one of his prideful masks. "We'll meet again, dear spider."

Before she could reply, he pushed her away from him. She stumbled backward through a portal she hadn't seen him open.

Natasha fell through space, thinking she was about to die. She didn't, but it felt like infinity spinning all around her, her mind unable to fathom the vastness of the universe around her.

 _Clint,_ she thought, shutting her eyes tightly. Perhaps a thought of him could anchor her, direct her to the proper place and time. She wouldn't put it past Loki to send her forward or backward in time, just to fuck with her.

She landed roughly, the breath knocked out of her. Her head hit the floor, hard enough that she blacked out.

Still, she had a flash of Clint's concerned expression before the darkness took her. I'm home was her last fragment of coherent thought.

***  
***


	2. Out Of Time

"He said I missed a week."

Clint looked at Natasha, who was sitting on a hospital bed in the helicarrier's infirmary. She had a mulish expression on her face and her arms crossed over her chest. Otherwise, she looked exactly the same as when he had last seen her. She knew all the proper authorization codes when Fury and Hill had interrogated her, and the medical team had cleared her of any active infections, pathogens or toxins. Her hair, blood and urine samples all matched tissue samples kept on file, so this was the same person they had dealt with.

He still found it difficult to let go of his mistrust, however. This was _Loki_ they were dealing with, after all. Something underhanded had to be happening.

"You were gone for nine days," Clint said after a moment.

That gave Natasha pause, and she looked over at him in surprise. "Directory Fury didn't say that it was nine days. Then again, he was too busy interrogating me."

"Did you think he wouldn't?"

Natasha shook her head and unfolded her arms. "No, I rather expected that. I tried to catalogue everything I saw, any scrap of information I could get about him."

"What _did_ you do there?" he asked, curious. He sat down across from her, impulsively reaching out to grasp her wrist. Before she had been taken, he thought there were extra lines on her wrists, something like scars that had faded. Looking at it now, he was sure of it, and didn't think Natasha had injured herself.

"Took a bath. Had a nap. Fucked Loki."

Her voice was so bland and emotionless, and Clint looked up in surprise. "Wait, what?"

"I would have guessed only a day or two passed at most," she continued in that same flat tone, giving him a half shrug. She probably didn't want to worry him, but that kind of thing only made Clint worry even more about her.

"Natasha..."

"He's powerful, and playing at being a god. But he is lonely and sensory deprived. I know how to work with that. I've worked with that before."

Clint wanted to sigh and pull at his hair in frustration at those words. "He's planning something, you know he is. He doesn't have your best interests at heart, and I worry about you," he said, finally admitting it aloud.

"You know what I have to do sometimes," Natasha told him, eyebrow raised at him in query.

He did, which was part of the problem. She would go to any lengths whatsoever to get the final objective done, as if her own needs weren't as important. She would become anyone and anything, and Clint was afraid she would lose herself in the process. No matter how often she reassured him she was still herself, he couldn't help but wonder if it was true. Her mind had been fragmented so badly since childhood, and he had experienced it only once. That one time had shaken him to the core, leaving him unable to imagine going through that repeatedly.

Her hand was warm over his, and she leaned into his personal space. It wasn't to tempt or distract him, but to reassure him of her presence. "Clint," she murmured.

"This is different. _He's_ different, you know that."

"I do."

"There's a game he's playing. If he's not after Jane Foster and her bridge, if he isn't interested in the Bifrost and Asgard, we don't know what he'll go for. We don't know what his play is, so it's going to be that much harder to predict him."

Natasha nodded, and Clint knew she would have considered this herself while locked away with Loki. Still, he had to remind her, if only to keep himself from shaking her. She was stubborn, though, and nothing he said would deter her, really.

"You have to keep yourself safe," Clint murmured, slinging an arm around her shoulders. It was possibly too demonstrative, too possessive, but she allowed it. "I will do whatever I can to help you, you know this. Even if Fury won't allow it, I _will_ be there. You have friends, Tash. Don't let Loki take you away from them."

"I won't," Natasha promised, her gaze perfectly clear and her expression as earnest as Clint had ever seen it.

Somehow, he couldn't shake the feeling that she was lying.

***

Armed with two Glock 19 pistols, about a thousand rounds of 9 mm ammunition and the proper headgear, Natasha walked into the range. It was deserted, which was not usual for that time of day. Frowning slightly, she took in the lanes and the sensors for each one. They were all functioning properly, and the clerk at the armory hadn't mentioned anything wrong with the range or that the time was allotted for a special class.

Stepping forward, Natasha looked for a slight shimmer in the air that might signal displaced light or a portal of some kind. She could only think that this was Loki's doing, given how often he seemed to find her in random places and times.

Sure enough, she found it in a corner of the range. The displacement was only noticeable because she was searching for it, and was roughly Loki-sized. Natasha thought of calling for Clint or Steve for an instant, then dismissed it. This was her op, her intel. She would have to handle it herself, not go calling for backup before she even ascertained the threat.

Natasha walked directly to the shimmer, which gradually resolved itself into Loki. He was wearing that black suit and forest green shirt she had seen him wear while walking around in New York City, his expression lighting up in amusement. "It seems you have found me again, dear spider," he said softly.

"It's a question of knowing where to look."

If anything, that reply made him laugh, throwing his head back and exposing the smooth column of his throat. She remembered digging her hands into his windpipe, or pressing her lips to the skin to make him shiver beneath her. He didn't seem bothered by the fact that she carried pistols with her and had been intending to shoot them; Loki clearly was up to something, but Natasha didn't have enough clues to guess at what he was up to yet.

Loki reached for her, a slight jerk betraying a hesitance to touch her. "Do you know me so well, then?" he asked.

"Does anyone?" she asked back. That earned her a slight twitch of a smile, and she nodded at him slightly. "What brings you here?"

"I thought to watch you."

"Is that why no one else is here?"

Now his smile was wide and as genuine as she had ever seen it. "A slight glamour, a trace of fear to chase away the weak minded. I wouldn't have our time interrupted."

Natasha laid a hand on his chest, confident he wouldn't move out of the way. "It matters that much to you?" she asked, slight curiosity in her tone.

"You are amusing to me," Loki said, a sharp edge to his voice. Ah. Falling back on sarcasm and grandiosity again. She had struck a nerve, though she didn't know what exactly had triggered it. Was it that she saw through him? Or that she was unsettling his plans for her?

"I have training planned for this afternoon." Natasha let her hand trail down his chest invitingly, suppressing a smile when he looked down at her hand. He was entranced, longing for some kind of contact. Of that she was certain.

He needed recognition, however he could get it. She just had to give him the right kind, and he might actually want to stay with SHIELD willingly.

"You are quite skilled," Loki murmured.

"Perhaps. But there's always someone better. Or at least better prepared." Loki watched as she stepped back, lips quirking into a slight smile. "Care to try a weapon of your own? The entire range is open to us, and I only need one lane."

Pondering for a moment, Loki finally nodded. "I haven't used that type. That isn't the way of Asgardians or Jotunn."

"They're more melee combatants, aren't they?"

"Your archer friend would not feel misplaced in their company."

Natasha nodded slowly, thinking of how Clint and Thor could bond over movies, popcorn and talk about weapons. "Perhaps. Some things never really change, do they?"

"Oh?"

"The need to protect what's yours."

He was at her side in an instant, glowering down at her. "You play games, little spider."

"Do I?" she asked, looking up at him without fear. "You wait for me with glamours, you pretend to be an agent, you whisk me away to some kind of dimension and leave me trapped there for nine days and don't send word to those that know me."

His smile was a shark's bearing of teeth. "Those are trifles."

"I don't need trifles," Natasha told him, turning and walking toward one of the open lanes. Her back was to him, and she walked tall and proud, as if his glowering figure meant nothing. As she thought he might, he rushed after her. "I intend to practice here, Loki. What are your intentions?"

"Today? Nothing untoward."

"At least there's that."

He watched her take out the Glock and check that the chamber was empty before loading in a magazine and beginning to shoot at the target. His presence didn't throw off her aim or stance, and she made sure she had tight, precise groupings over different parts of the figure. She hit the return to change paper targets, but Loki snapped his fingers and the used target was neatly exchanged for a fresh one. Natasha nodded her thanks, then sent the target back to the fifty yard mark on the lane. She went through about half of her supply before switching out to the second Glock, and she didn't bother explaining for Loki's benefit, even though the curiosity was evident on his face. In utter silence, she checked the second pistol, loaded it, and proceeded to fire at the target. Every time she changed or reloaded magazines, he switched used targets for fresh ones, watching her spare, efficient movements carefully.

"I don't think I like those kinds of weapons," Loki said slowly, when Natasha finished with all of her ammunition. She swept the shells away and scooped them up into the bin, and moved back to the table with the Glocks to return them to their cases.

"It's not your style, no," Natasha agreed.

"You use that weapon with either hand," he observed.

"It pays to be prepared."

He stood behind her as she snapped the cases shut, then trailed his long fingers down her arms until they rested at her wrists. The scar on her abdomen throbbed painfully, as if it wanted to pull right through her body to connect with him. "I would try one of those, perhaps, but it is too impersonal, too distant."

It was what she had thought. Not enough recognition, no way to feed his ego.

"What was your plan for today?" she asked, putting the cases down and turning around in the circle of his arms. Her scar twitched and fell silent, simple scar tissue once more.

Loki smiled, a possessive baring of teeth. "Come with me. Let me take you from here, where we may speak at length."

Natasha lofted an eyebrow at him. "Am I going to lose nine days again?"

He chuckled. "Not unless you wish it."

"I don't," she said firmly.

"Then we may leave and return to this same time, as if we had never left at all."

"That would be a neat trick. I'll believe it when I see it," she commented dryly.

"You don't trust me," Loki said, a playful pout on his lips.

"I think you've made it clear so far that I shouldn't," Natasha returned easily. There were certain things she could count on when it came down to this man, but absolute trust would be a long time in coming for _anyone._

He chuckled again and wound his arms around her. "Perhaps I could earn that trust."

Natasha thought of asking why he would want to, but instead merely quirked her lips. "Let's see you try," she challenged. That would be more effective for him than subtle digs into his psyche.

The air shimmered around them, more controlled than the rapid portal he had used at Stark Tower. Or Avengers Tower, as she should probably start thinking of it. Loki walked backward, leading her forward into the portal, through time and space and into his icy cell. It looked the same as before, though the ink spill was cleaned up. Natasha reached up and touched his jaw gently, startling him. "You are very good at being in control," she murmured.

"As are you," he returned, tilting his head so that his lips pressed against her palm. "That kind of control you have is extremely hard won, is it not?"

"It was," she agreed, not bothering to elaborate. "Much as I imagine yours was."

Of course, the thing of it was, at times he had _no_ control at all. There was a flash of surprise on his features before the indifferent mask settled back into place. "Perhaps," he allowed after a moment, gaze raking across her face. "Would you give up that control to me?"

"Why would I want to do that?" she asked. He might have remembered their second encounter, outside of her safe house in the city. Perhaps he remembered she was turned on by being tied up and held, control wrested from her but consent still hers to give. Natasha's insides seemed to flutter a bit in anticipation.

Loki grinned and lifted her up easily so that they were at eye level. "In some ways, little spider, I don't think you've been challenged overmuch. I saw you, in that insipid little bar as you made your appointment with pieces of filth. I saw you scrabbling for scraps of information, working your way through the shadows. You try so hard to understand, to act on behalf of your masters, and I see something in you needing more."

Her mouth was dry, her breath caught in her chest. "And what do you suppose that _more_ would be, Loki?" she asked, voice even and cool despite the sudden burst of adrenaline in her system. He was dangerous, just as she was, and he saw far too much into her, just as she saw far too much into him. She would have to tread even more carefully.

"I can give you more," he purred. "I can take control, show you how sweet surrender can be. I can be a master you can serve."

Natasha let out a bored sigh, though her heart skipped a beat. "This again?"

"This time, it would be a more personal level. Natasha," he purred, leaning in closely. "It's lonely," he said, his voice an intimate caress. "Holding yourself apart, not able to lean on those fools you work with. For a time, you can be mine." He gave a brilliant smile that managed to look almost shy at the same time. "And perhaps, for a time later, I can be yours."

She touched his face with both of her hands, thumbs brushing at the corner of his mouth. "What are you proposing, then?"

"Shall we satisfy our needs together, you and I? I don't think your fellows would understand this, or would be able to surrender to me." He looked at her earnestly. "I perhaps went about it the wrong way before. Your kind has changed over centuries, ours has not. Collectively, there is no wish to be ruled, but _individually, momentarily..._ That, I can give you."

"And it would satisfy your needs as well, wouldn't it?"

"We all have needs, dear one," Loki replied, a sad smile on his face. "Some we can meet, some we cannot. Some things we can never have."

Natasha smiled when he sucked one of her thumbs into his mouth, his teeth lightly abrading her skin. "Then show me what you mean. Let's see what you can do."

"You didn't do your worst to me," he reminded her. "Would you have me try my hand at it?"

Now her smile was genuine. "Give it your best shot."

Loki removed her clothing slowly, mouth hovering over her bared skin. Occasionally he pressed his lips or tongue there, smiling when she shivered in the cold. "Would you still say magic is cheating, dear spider?" he asked, breath warm against her navel.

"Depends on how you use it," she replied.

"To be sure you submit to me," he said, looking up at her. He was kneeling in front of her, hands at her knees. Natasha knew he was kneeling only to undress her, not to imply weakness or that she was superior to him. He was smirking, in fact, making her think he had all sorts of rather depraved things he would like to do with his magic.

She threaded her fingers through his hair, appreciating the silken softness for a moment. "You can use your magic this time, then."

No sooner had the words left her mouth than his magic held her wrists and ankles. She was maneuvered over to his pile of sleeping furs, which tickled her bare skin. It was comfortable, but she was definitely securely bound and unable to move from her spread-eagled position. She could turn her head, but nothing else. Loki loomed over her, a satisfied expression on his face, and then he moved to her side and kissed her thoroughly. Natasha couldn't help but respond to him licking into her mouth as one hand slid down her stomach, his fingers brushing across her scar on their way to the juncture of her thighs. He chuckled into the kiss when her abdomen twitched and she tried to twist beneath his touch. She couldn't move at all, and her breath quickened in anticipation.

More magic was applied, as she could feel ghostly hands caressing her breasts and pinching her nipples as his actual hand carded through her pubic hair before tracing her folds. Natasha tried to keep herself from moaning, but it was almost too much sensory input. Loki was licking her lips, paying them careful attention while the magic filled her, teased her and brought her just to the edge of orgasm. All sensation abruptly stopped then, and she cursed viciously. Loki laughed and sat back on his haunches. "It burns you to have come so close."

"You smug bastard," Natasha said, trying to get herself under control. "Are you even going to finish things?"

"I told you, darling spider," he purred, leaning in to lick one taut nipple. "You must cede control to me completely. You haven't done that yet, have you?"

"The last ones that tried doing that are dead now. Plan to join that illustrious company?"

Loki laughed. "You'll beg me for release. And perhaps I will even give it to you. Someday."

Natasha struggled a little, but it was no use. She hadn't been expecting this, though she probably should have. Her anger now was as much embarrassment for being so easily caught with her emotions exposed as it was for being at his mercy. His touch on her abdomen now was soothing but not sexual, making her ground her teeth together in frustration. She _wanted,_ so badly, and he was going to be a fucking tease about it. Perhaps her old marks used to feel this way when she taunted them, but at least she gave them a good time in the process.

When her heart rate and breathing slowed, Loki knelt down and suckled on one of her breasts. One hand was still on her abdomen, the other was at her side but not touching her. She managed to suppress a groan of frustration, but then the magic touches started in again. Ghostly fingers slid through her slippery folds and touched her clit with lazy strokes, and another mouth latched onto her other breast. Natasha gasped and tried to wriggle a bit, but her hips remained firmly in place. She couldn't twitch against the ghostly touch, making it more intense or speed it up. She could feel him smile against her skin, the smug bastard, and she was determined not to beg for release no matter what he did.

Though Natasha tried to resist succumbing to Loki's touch again, the magic had the effect of four pairs of hands working at her flesh. Her breath quickened in spite of herself, and she squeezed her eyes shut to avoid looking at his expression. That made the sensation more intense, so that she could feel two fingers rubbing at her clit, two fingers inside her, a third rubbing at her backside, one hand pinching her nipple and a separate pair of hands caressing her thighs and calves. Loki moved to lick at her lips again, so another ghostly hand materialized to flick the wet nipple he abandoned. Natasha moaned against his mouth, her eyes opening slightly. Instead of looking smug the way she thought he would, he seemed to be just as lost in the sensation as she was. Perhaps this magic use was an extension of his mind after all.

The magic touches abruptly stopped again as Loki leaned back on his haunches. There was a slight flush to his pale cheeks, and the heavy lidded gaze told Natasha how aroused he was. Still, he was more interested in denying her release until she begged for it, damn him.

"Has anyone treated you so?" he asked, an undercurrent of lust evident to his voice.

"No," she replied shortly. Though she tugged again, the magical bonds held fast. "I was trained to kill and to move without being seen since childhood," she said, looking at him evenly.

Loki ran a finger along the L shaped scar he had given her. "I suppose in that, our lives ran in parallel, have they not?" He smiled gently, an almost tender expression on his face. "Yet you have boon companions and I do not."

"We've made different choices along the way."

"Do you really think you can erase all the red dripping from your ledger?"

"I can try."

"Would it make you any less a murderer? Any less evil?"

Natasha got the feeling he wasn't talking about her sins anymore, but let it pass. She had agreed to bow to his whims so far, though she really didn't plan to cede control, only the appearance of it. "I'm looking for balance."

"Can there be balance? With that much red?"

His gaze burned, and the scar beneath his finger seemed to throb in agony. That drove all remnant of pleasure from her system. "Perhaps if enough innocents are saved, I'll find it."

"Are there truly innocent souls out there?" he asked, and the scar _burned_ in sympathy.

"Yes."

"Interesting."

She hadn't thought she was giving anything away, but Loki behaved as though she had. Once more the magic touch descended upon her. Natasha gasped at the abrupt sensory change. Now her scar seemed overly sensitive to touch, pleasure flooding through her instead of pain. Magic stroked her clit and labia, caressed her thighs and belly, delved into her soaking center and suckled at her breasts. Loki was naked now, and she readily opened her mouth to take in his cock. He thrust deep into her, hitting the back of her throat, his own breath a hiss of pleasure. She was filled and surrounded by his presence, unable to buck up against him. Natasha sucked hard on him, making him cry out. In reflex, the magic touches were harder, more sure against her flesh, making her nearly spasm from how close she was riding to orgasm.

He might have wanted to pull back again, but Natasha sucked hard again, opening up her throat as best as she could from that angle. It felt like he had three fingers thrusting up inside her and another finger slicked and moving inside her ass. She moaned around his cock, the vibration making Loki grunt in pleasure. "Do you yield to me?" he groaned, leaning forward a little to look at her eyes. "You lie beneath me at my mercy," he panted, thrusting a little harder against her mouth. _"Do you yield?"_

Obviously, Natasha couldn't speak with his cock in her mouth. _For now,_ she thought, jerking her chin slightly. The pressure of his magic was steady, keeping her coasting on the edge of orgasm without letting her tip over. She wanted to come, needed to come, and he knew it. He was the only one that could let it happen, and he reveled in this moment of mastery.

He seemed to see her answer in her eyes. Loki thrust into her mouth until he came, bitter against her tongue. Only then did the magic move faster against her clit and inside her. Natasha nearly screamed as the pleasure hit her, nearly whiting out her vision.

The magical bonds loosened, but Natasha couldn't move. She felt wrung out and exhausted, utterly spent. Loki shifted position to kneel beside her sprawled body. He tenderly stroked her cheek, watching her fluttering breath.

"One day," he said softly in a possessive tone of voice. "You will not fight the fate I give you."

Natasha gave him a lazy smile and pulled him down beside her. "We'll see."

Loki licked her lips and pressed his lips against the tip of her nose. With an amused smile, he licked her eyelids and laughed at her puzzled expression. "I'll find you, Natasha," he murmured, moving to lick at the shell of her ear. "Wherever you are, I will find you. Perhaps I will help you save your innocent souls, perhaps not." He moved to nuzzle her neck. "When you are ready, I'll take you back. Same time and place, as I promised."

She pulled his head up to give him a kiss. "In a little while."

Grinning, he kissed her back and moved to cover her body with his. "Yes. In a little while."

***  
***


	3. Connections

Delightfully aching and sated for the first time in what felt like years, Natasha couldn't help but smile as she left the range. She skipped the rest of her planned exercises and instead went to the small office she generally used on site. It was in the bowels of the building, hidden in a warren of other nondescript offices or open bullpens full of cubicles. Clint once called it her nest, the center of an information web, and she had smiled at the fanciful notion. But it fit, after a fashion, and there was always a backlog of paperwork or filing that needed to be done.

Her thoughts strayed back to Loki several times, and she found herself holding the crystal in her hands or simply pressing her hand against her clothed chest, pressing it into her skin. He had promised to find her, finding her interest in defending innocent lives amusing. There were always leads to follow, the potential Hydra mole still hidden. Perusing SHIELD networks showed several attempts at hacking, not all of them from Stark Industries. Tony probably got bored with how easily it could be done, and didn't bother to actually look through everything he got from his attempts. There were various organizations developing, though that was usually a Level Seven clearance rating. She had Level Nine clearance, but wasn't interested in taking on yet another search mission when apparently a new team was being developed. She rather liked the solo approach that Fury was letting her take.

An hour or two of shuffling files and poking at online presences of her usual contacts, and Natasha felt a little more settled. She walked toward Avengers Tower, and she wasn't terribly surprised when Loki fell into lock step beside her. "Miss me already?" she asked dryly.

"It may have just been hours for you, but it has been weeks for me," Loki murmured. He sounded almost tired, and Natasha slowed her pace to look at him. There were shadows almost like bruises beneath his eyes, and his already pale skin seemed translucent. It was odd to see his hair soft and wavy, to see him in an ordinary sweatshirt and jeans. "I walked along the branches of Yggdrasil," he said quietly before she could ask him what happened. "Some creatures live there in the darkness."

"They don't like you, I take it," Natasha said, stopping and facing him fully.

Loki's smile was rueful. "No, they don't. They took exception to my presence, and it took some time to escape their notice." He paused. "I hoped to presume upon your hospitality, as you had partaken of mine."

"Others will notice you're in the tower," she pointed out.

"I could put together a glamour," he offered. He looked almost pathetic enough to start begging for help, but Natasha doubted he actually would. He would rather crawl into a dark corner and hide to lick his wounds rather than damage his pride further. He could ask her for a place to stay only because he could make it seem as though she owed him that much. He would never admit to weakness if he could avoid it.

"I rarely have guests, so even a glamour would be noticeable," Natasha informed him. "I have a better idea for you."

"Oh?" He turned to her, not even a trace of a sneer on his face. "Do you offer the tender mercies of your superiors?"

She shook her head and took his arm gently. "Put the glamour on if you like, I'm sure there are plenty of facial recognition software accounts looking for you. We're going to relax a little."

She led him to the Distrikt Hotel, a short walk from Port Authority and Times Square. It was fairly close to Avengers Tower in case she had to make an expeditious retreat, but that wasn't as obvious a selling point. Loki was charmed by the décor, and the eighteenth floor room had a view of the Hudson River. Their room was done up in whites and grays, with sleek black accents here and there. It fit Loki's style and almost reminded Natasha of his hideaway. It was a place to rest and hide in luxurious comfort, and he gratefully sank down onto the bed. Natasha smiled at the sight of him pressing his face into the comforter, and she sat down beside him. She ran her fingers through his hair gently, making him nearly purr in pleasure.

"You can rest here," she told him, voice soft. "I don't have to stay here if you want me to leave."

Loki lifted his head, eyes boring into hers. "Stay."

"Are you sure?" she asked quietly, still stroking his hair.

He caught her wrist in his hand, not too tightly, just enough to make her pause. "I so rarely seek aid, you must understand that." Natasha nodded, not saying anything, and Loki relaxed a little. "There are few who would willingly assist me."

"So perhaps a few allies would be helpful," she said in a soothing tone of voice.

"Perhaps," he allowed, then let his head sink back onto the comforter. When he released her wrist, Natasha moved closer and started to massage his shoulders and back. He made a soft, contented sound, rather like a cat purring. "You have your uses."

Natasha pushed aside her irritation with the statement and merely continued working through his knotted muscles. She continued working through the kinks, only raising an eyebrow when Loki suddenly turned his head to stare at her. "Is there a problem?"

"You don't respond to verbal traps I set, not in the way I think you might."

It must have rankled something fierce for him to actually say something aloud. "What responses were you hoping to get?"

 _"Something,"_ he admitted, letting his head fall down to the bed. He could still see her easily, but some of his expression was hidden by his hair now. "You give me nothing."

"Thank you," she responded mildly, still working on his back. "I went through a lot of training in order to be able to do that."

"Oh? There are formal schools for that?"

"Formal? No, far from it. It was a secret program developed years ago. Orphans were raised in it, trained to be deadly and efficient assassins." Natasha's voice and expression betrayed nothing of what she had felt while training in the Red Room. "Some skills stay with you."

"You'd mentioned your specific skill set," Loki ventured.

"Yes," Natasha agreed with a sharp nod. "There was little else dealt with in that program, and not much else left behind other than the training they gave me."

Loki shifted and sat up abruptly. He stared at her closely, which made Natasha feel acutely uncomfortable and aware that no one was aware of where she was at that moment. She didn't usually feel vulnerable with that realization, but now she did.

"You said orphan. You were one, then. No parents to call your own." She nodded sharply again, not bothering to speak. "Do you remember them?"

"No."

He searched her expression and found nothing but honesty. "I was stolen as an infant."

"I hadn't been aware of that. I only know that you're adopted."

"Stolen and lied to my entire lifetime," Loki said, an undercurrent of loathing and despair in his voice. The acute fear that Natasha had felt just moments ago bled away; she could deal with this kind of melodrama easily.

"You're an adult now. You choose what to do with that information."

That seemed to give him pause. "And if I choose not to claim Thor as brother?"

He was clearly testing the waters, but Natasha was prepared for this. She shrugged, expression still neutral. "Then you don't. It's your choice to make, and he'll have to accept it."

"He won't like it," Loki said, expression darkening and brows furrowing. "He never likes it when he doesn't get his way."

Natasha suspected that Loki didn't either, but didn't want to see a godly tantrum. She remained silent instead, letting Loki decide where the conversation went next.

"You don't speak ill of him," Loki said after a moment.

"I see a different side of him than you do," Natasha told him dispassionately. "I didn't grow up with him. I just fight with him."

Loki pondered that for a moment. "He is a blustering fool," he said slowly. "He was always that way, always needing to be the most important. I remember that about him."

"Memory isn't absolute," Natasha told him. She almost regretted that when his gaze sharpened and he had that intense look about him again.

"You speak of yourself."

"Memory in general isn't absolute. Experiments have been done proving that eyewitness testimony isn't entirely accurate, even if it's held to be the highest standard of proof." Natasha felt the sharp tug in her abdominal scar, as if he was willing her to be more truthful. She had spoken enough about the Red Room, but it could perhaps create some kind of bond.

Her reluctance to elaborate served as enticement enough, it seemed. Loki sat up on the bed and touched her hands, making her think of teenage sleepovers in movies from the 1980's. "That's not mere research that you speak of. I can sense that about you. You speak of personal experience, of your own memory not being absolute."

"Because it wasn't," she said, each syllable clipped and distinct. "The training I received also included memory alterations."

He didn't say anything for a long time, merely touching the backs of her hands. "You killed them, didn't you? You mentioned killing the ones that took control from you. They were the ones that hurt you, that maimed your mind. This is why you care for your own identity, why you value your own life. You know it to be yours, not altered as it was when you were a child."

Natasha _definitely_ felt uncomfortably exposed now. It was supposed to be the other way around. She was supposed to see too much into him. She didn't say anything; she couldn't, not without her own frustration showing through.

His expression softened in her silence, and he leaned forward slightly to give her a chaste kiss on the lips. "I am sorry for your pain and loss, little spider. I was unaware of it."

"You weren't supposed to be."

Loki smiled, his eyes lighting up a bit. "Perhaps we are more evenly matched than either of us thought. You understand the trials I find myself in, and I understand that pain you feel."

"So where does that leave us?" she asked softly.

"Comrades," he murmured, lips still drawn back in a smile. "Maybe even allies."

Fury could possibly get his magic consultant after all.

***

Natasha, Clint and a junior agent were working their way through a cadre of AIM goons; she wasn't sure why they were involved in HYDRA's recent recruitment scheme, other than the fact that it might have been a good morale boost. There were enough of them around that Natasha was in constant motion, even with Clint shooting arrows from a perch up above. Most of his arrows allowed the junior agent room to move toward the computer bank to try to hack their system. Natasha would have preferred to handle that herself, but apparently Sitwell wanted to break in a few new agents and get them more involved in cases like this.

"I don't particularly like babysitting," Natasha told Clint _sotto voce_ once the AIM goons were down and he dropped from his perch. The junior agent was good with a computer, she would give him that much, but that didn't mean Natasha had to like it.

Clint chuckled. "At least it was easy pickings." He snapped his wrist to collapse his bow so he could stow it behind his back. "It's good to have some live targets to practice on. Ranges are good every now and again, but it's the live targets that are most fun."

"I'll remember that," Loki said behind them.

Natasha and Clint turned, seeing Loki sitting in a chair. He was dressed in a sleek black business suit, crisp white shirt open at the throat and no tie. His eyes were on Natasha in her uniform, and he likely had been watching her move the entire time. The scar on her abdomen seemed to preen in delight, and she had to squelch the sensation ruthlessly.

Before Clint could take his bow back out, Loki stood and nodded at them genially. "My apologies for intruding, dear spider, I do know how you value your work. But after you left, I was sorely lacking amusement." He removed a jump drive from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and held it out. "I was assured that the contents herein would be most intriguing."

"Where did you get that?" she asked, taking the drive. Natasha could see Clint's hand twitch in impatience, and he likely wanted to let loose a few arrows in Loki's direction.

"Clive Meissen is the name he uses that you would recognize," Loki replied with a shrug. Clint frowned, finding the name vaguely familiar. "He had other aliases for different organizations that he became part of. Perhaps on that device you will discover why he chose to do so."

"You didn't ask him?" Natasha asked, eyebrow raised as she closed the drive inside her fist.

"I thought you might like the honors yourself." He turned to Clint with a wide yet somehow condescending smile. "Considering your interest in live targets, perhaps it was a correct assumption for me to make."

"What do you want?" Clint asked, voice hard and untrusting.

"I am fulfilling my end of our bargain." He gave the spies a smooth, smarmy smile and lifted his hands so that they could see he carried no weapons. His knives were in their sheaths, strapped into place. Clint could likely grab his bow and nock an arrow faster than Loki could unbuckle the strap and get at one of his blades.

"Thank you," Natasha said. She stepped forward slightly and pressed her empty hand against his chest. "I appreciate this."

Loki clapped one hand over hers, smile softening a fraction. "I hoped you would. I should go. Your superior officers don't trust my intentions yet."

"Should they?" Clint asked sharply.

Now Loki's smile was genuine. "We shall see, won't we?"

He disappeared just as the junior agent finished gathering the hacked information onto a flash drive of his own. He apparently never saw Loki, and neither Clint nor Natasha saw fit to mention his presence. Once back at headquarters, Clint insisted on being with Natasha when she went through the contents of Loki's drive. It did lay out information about Clive Meissen, who was a midlevel agent with SHIELD, Level Five clearance. Apparently he had active dealings with AIM, HYDRA and the Rising Tide; the man seemed to value money over ideals, as there was evidence of his selling information about each organization to others.

"Son of a bitch," Clint muttered, looking at the screen. He flicked through different virtual windows, frowning. Natasha was very still, taking in the array of data. "This is your HYDRA mole, isn't it?"

"It would appear that way, yes."

"You don't trust Loki," he said, turning to look at her with approval.

"Of course not. I plan to verify this for myself."

"And if it's real?"

Natasha gave him a slow smile. "Want in on the op?"

Clint returned her smile. "With you in the lead? Absolutely."

***

The information was real, even after Natasha independently verified the information with three other sources she did trust. The only problem was that her strike team found an empty house instead of Clive Meissen.

As the team disbanded, Natasha lingered behind. She couldn't have said why, exactly, but she had the feeling that she shouldn't leave yet. Clint remained somewhere in the house, and she was comforted by the fact that he trusted her instincts.

"Do you trust me now?" Loki asked, leaning against the doorway in his usual Asgardian regalia.

Natasha's gut tightened at the sight of him, the scar pulsing with pleasure at his arrival. This was the edgy feeling, then. Somehow, they were linked, as if he had called to her. "About Meissen, at the very least," she replied.

He smiled, beckoning for her to approach him. She took slow, measured steps forward, hips swaying enticingly. Loki placed his hands there, fingers pressing into her flesh through the uniform in a possessive manner. "Yours is not a trusting nature."

"Neither is yours," she countered, tilting her face up toward him.

Loki kissed her as if he would claim her body and soul as his. "And what of your hawk?" he asked softly. "He doesn't know the isolation as you do."

"He does now that you've unmade him."

"As you were."

"I was a child. I put a stop to it when I knew what was going on." Her voice was clipped and hard, and Loki's gaze seemed to soften. "You used him, Loki. You abused his mind and body for your own purposes. We understand that very well."

"I am not sorry for that," Loki told her plainly. "I had great need at the time."

"I know."

"Would you come away with me for a time? Would you endure my touch again?"

Natasha lofted an eyebrow at him in amusement. "Endure isn't the word I'd use for it."

His lips quirked into a smile of acknowledgement. "Share my bed, little spider. I would have you aching and begging for release as before."

"I need to wrap up here."

Loki touched her chest with his open palm, pressing his crystal into her skin. "Use the charm when you can. I'll be waiting for you."

He disappeared, but the pressure of the crystal into her chest seemed to remain. Natasha looked around the empty room, feeling almost like a traitor. Clint was important to her, more so than her own life or safety, yet she knew she would shatter that crystal to see Loki again. He might not know that the crystal existed, but Clint knew what her orders were. He knew what she was doing for the sake of those orders. As much as he didn't approve, he wasn't about to stop her, either. He knew as well as anyone did what the stakes were.

Natasha closed her eyes for a moment. There was work to be done, and she had to still build up on the fragile alliance she had with Loki. That was as logical a reason as any to use if Clint wanted to question her about what she was doing.

Still, there were her own wants as well. She wanted the physical release Loki gave her, the intensity of it that left her feeling every part of her body all at once. She wanted him brought over to SHIELD, if only to please Fury. That would also help balance her ledger a bit; if he was curbed in some way, he wouldn't be slaughtering innocents any longer.

Natasha knew she was justifying herself. She wasn't used to being selfish. Any of her prior aliases had been disposable, their needs just shadows to hide behind. She was only herself now, no persona to hide behind.

She opened her eyes and looked for Clint. Once this op was wrapped up, she was shattering the crystal to see Loki.

***

Fury was pleased at the information Loki had presented Natasha and Clint. The downloaded data had been useful for a separate operation, but Fury wanted Meissen found and put in an isolation cell. "SHIELD security has been compromised enough," he told the assembled agents in the conference room. "It doesn't seem as though he was able to get his hands on the serum formula or some of the better technological advances the R&D team put together, but it might just be a matter of time."

"Meissen's gone to ground," Sitwell said from his seat, indicating the security feed data that was hovering in the center of the conference table. "We won't be able to get to him from the SHIELD angle. Maybe one of his other aliases."

"I have links to several HYDRA agents, some Ten Rings enforcers and a few AIM flunkies," Natasha said with a shake of her head. "I've been working those angles for months and never got a named connection."

"He might not be ours, but Loki's intel is good," Sitwell commented.

"We shouldn't be trusting him," Clint grumbled. Natasha glanced at him, but Fury ignored the statement and looked at the other agents around the table.

"I want a team," Fury said in a tone that brooked no argument. He looked around the conference tablet at each of the agents present. His expression was fierce, his jaw clenched tight. "Look for Meissen and get him to me. This is a priority."

Natasha tuned out the others as they eventually filed out of the room. She hung back with Clint and walked out only when he did. "What's your take on this?" she asked in a low tone.

"He's playing us, I'm sure of it. Just like with Dr. Foster and the bridge, now this. He's playing some kind of long game, I just don't know what it is."

"I'm sure Fury knows that, too."

"He just doesn't care as long as that madman's useful," Clint replied with an unhappy nod, an edge of bitterness in his voice.

"Do you think I should walk away?" she asked bluntly, making him stop in his surprise. She shrugged when he gave her an incredulous look. "Fury thinks I'm some kind of Loki expert. If I say this can't be done, that I have to walk away, he'd have to accept it."

"That doesn't mean he won't keep pushing you to make it work," Clint said with a shake of his head. "He wants this to work, no matter what." Not to mention, Clint was sure that Natasha wanted it to work as well. It was her reputation on the line, after all.

"I trust your gut."

Clint snorted. "No, you don't. Remember Belgrade?"

Now it was Natasha's turn to snort. "Aren't you the one that says we remember things differently?" she asked with a grin.

Managing not to laugh when a junior agent scurried away from them, Clint returned her grin. "I did, because we do. And you _don't_ trust my gut unless it coincides with yours."

"I don't think tracking down Meissen will be that easy. And I don't know if Loki can truly be trusted." Her voice dropped down low, to barely above a whisper. "He might be willing to work with us, so long as we still amuse him in some way. Above all else, he hates being bored."

"Not to mention there are plenty of junior agents that would probably admire him," Clint added in a dry tone.

"If they're not afraid of him."

"But you're not anymore."

"Not like before," she said.

Clint looked at her in concern. "Then how is it now?"

Natasha sighed; she clearly hadn't wanted to admit anything aloud, but Clint would worry more if she blew him off. She knew that, and generally she tried not to worry him too much if she could help it. They had saved each other too many times over the years, largely because they understood when they had to back off and when it was time to press. Clint knew not to press now, as she was choosing how to express her frustration.

"I don't know if I'm missing something," she said finally, irritation evident. There was a slight pause, something that made Clint look at her more closely. "He might be seeing me as easily as I'm seeing him."

"And if he isn't ours, he could use whatever he sees against us."

She nodded unhappily, and he touched her arm briefly; to outsiders, it was just a brief touch, but for them it was a comforting gesture. "Whatever you need, Tasha, I'll do it. I promise you."

Her lips quirked up in the corners slightly, but her pose didn't relax at all. Her tiny frame was still taut with tension, and Clint knew he hadn't really relieved her worry. "I know."

"Where do you think we should start looking for Meissen next?" Clint asked.

As far as diversion tactics went, work was always a good one to fall back on. Natasha took it gratefully; he could guess by the way her stance shifted. "I'll look into AIM. The most recent data seemed to indicate he had the most dealings with them and their tech. It fits."

Clint nodded. "You do your thing, then. But the Avengers will probably need to back you up, given the last time we've tangled with them. I hate to say it, but SHIELD doesn't have enough of a surefire way to stop them yet."

Natasha grinned. "I'm working on that."

He was sure she did. Given how private she was with that kind of work, he just wasn't sure if he would be there to back her up.

Going in a different direction, Clint left the building and headed for Avengers Tower. Even if Tony Stark wasn't around, he was sure Jarvis could find him. Bruce Banner probably didn't know about AIM technology, and likely he would still be caught up in correspondence with Jane Foster, who had been moved to yet another secure location when Natasha was abducted. The two were still hammering out the details for the Einstein-Rosen bridge, but Clint was sure it was only a matter of time before the thing was working.

Tony was in his workshop, an array of translucent screens hovering in front of his face and scattered remains of an Iron Man suit all around him. Clint didn't enter immediately, wanting to see what it was that Tony planned to do. It didn't look like much to him, but he was sure there were myriad ideas whirring around in the man's brain.

"You might as well come on in, birdbrain," Tony called out, not turning around as he frowned at one of the translucent screens. He flicked it over to the side and enlarged a second one.

Clint entered the workshop, taking care not to upset any of the parts on the tables. It was odd to see Tony without the glowing arc reactor in his chest. There were dark smudges that looked as dark as bruises beneath his eyes, but otherwise Tony seemed exactly the same as he had right after the Battle of New York. Considering how he looked exactly the same as well, Clint knew that there had to be more to it. "What do you know about AIM now that Extremis isn't their private toy to play with?" he asked Tony.

It clearly surprised Tony that Clint would bring it up. "They have other tech that they beg, borrow and steal. Why?"

"They might be getting info from SHIELD via a mole. Not a particularly picky one, since he's sold data to HYDRA too, but potentially damaging. I don't think this should be an op that SHIELD agents do on their own."

"Huh." Tony paused and then saved the screens he had been working on. "Did Fury send you?"

"No."

"Because the Avengers had been his idea. And I'm not sure I feel like playing by his rules."

"His only rule right now is catching this mole." Clint shrugged. "I'm coming to you on my own, not because he asked me to show up."

"You figure I'd help you?"

"I figure you're the one that knows technology. You know AIM. So you'd be able to tell me how I can walk in there prepared."

Tony shut off all of his screens and stared at Clint. "They're bastards. Just because the boss is dead doesn't mean that the rest of them wouldn't be able to continue in his footsteps. He didn't care who he killed, as long as he got his way, as long as he got to showcase his tech. And it was good, let me tell you. Flawed in a lot of areas, nothing a few bug fixes couldn't catch eventually. I was able to fix Extremis, after all. But it's better than any of the Hammer tech that Fury got for SHIELD. I did tell him he should have gone for my company instead, but I think Fury doesn't like me. Can't imagine why."

Clint didn't miss the white knuckles on Tony's fists, despite the lighthearted tone he tried to take at the end. "So this is an Avengers thing."

"This is an Avengers thing."

"So as soon as Natasha tells me where these guys are hiding, why don't we knock 'em all down and take away their toys?"

Tony gave Clint a grin, and it reminded Clint more of fellow SHIELD veterans than of the Tony Stark he had seen in the media or from the Battle of New York. He was a different man now than months ago, and it remained to be seen if the change was for the better. He knew the same could be said of himself at this point.

"I'll have a new suit ready to go in time," he told Clint, waving around his workshop. "Maybe a few ready to go. Depends on the modifications I can do and what we'll need."

"How much tech do you think AIM has?"

A shadow passed over Tony's face, and Clint almost regretted the question. "They're prepped for war. World war, to be precise. I wouldn't be surprised if they sell to the highest bidder and pit them against each other." One of his fists came to rest on his workbench. "Your mole is a bastard, Birdbrain. How does Fury plan to take him out?"

"Right now, the order's just to find him." Clint paused. "He never said to bring him back alive, if that makes any difference."

Tony smirked at him, confirming that he was a vastly different man. "Well, now. Maybe Rhodey can come along with War Machine. That's got all the missiles, after all." He looked over at the half constructed suit that looked a little too delicate to be an Iron Man. "Maybe Rescue should have a few, too."

"Whatever you think is best," Clint replied with a shrug, not sure who would pilot Rescue. "I just want to make sure we come out of it alive."

"Oh, yes. That I definitely plan on."

***   
***


	4. Shattered Control

Natasha arrived with a bag full of toys and lube. She dropped the bag onto the floor beside Loki, who was sprawled across his furs with a book in hand. The book was handmade, bound in gilt leather, and its pages were covered in runic script. He looked from the book to the bag, then up to Natasha. "What is this?" he asked, some caution in his tone.

"My turn," Natasha said sweetly.

Loki put the book aside and sat up, a questioning look on his face. "Your turn for what?"

"I dominate you." She reached over and pushed him onto his back, her eyes locked to his. "You are _my_ thrall for the moment, to do with what I will."

"This would be your worst, then?" he asked, eyebrow raised. Now he looked intrigued.

"It wouldn't be my worst if you beg me for it," Natasha informed him, lips curling a little in the corners. "What do you say?"

He grinned and spread his arms wide. "I am at your mercy. We'll see if you have me begging."

"Take off your clothes," she commanded, her voice taking on a sharp tone that brooked no argument. When he made no movement immediately, Natasha took his chin in hand, pinching hard. _"Now."_

Loki scurried to obey, understanding that the game was on. She was dressed comfortably in jeans and a lightweight sweater, hair loose and curling down to her shoulders. Opening the bag, she decided what she wanted to start with, but made no move to grab anything yet. She eyed Loki's lean body first, the slope and planes of his limbs as he laid back down on the pile of soft furs. He seemed almost anxious under her examining stare, as if he wasn't used to being so obviously weighed and judged. It was a ridiculous notion, given how often he really was judged by others, but it brought to mind how insecure he actually was.

Natasha took out scented oil and rubbed it into the skin of his abdomen. Loki started at the touch, then began to lean into it, eyes closing. He sucked in a breath when she started rubbing the oil into his cock. Her touch was methodical, getting it to rise until she could clench her slicked fist around its length. His eyes opened when Natasha took her hand away, and he blinked in surprise when she took out a cock cage. "What—?"

"Quiet," she ordered, expression flat and almost disinterested. His lips parted, but he made no sound. She nodded briskly at him, then put on the cage. The only sound was his ragged breathing; even the fire in the fireplace didn't crackle. "On your hands and knees."

His erection didn't flag in the slightest. If anything, his breathing quickened and he moved with alacrity to get into position. "Little—"

 _"Don't,"_ she warned, voice sharp.

"Natasha," he murmured, voice soft. "What would you have me do?"

He couldn't see her, so she allowed herself a pleased smile as she reached for the lube. "Take what I give you. And maybe when you beg for it, I'll let you come."

The snap of the tube's cap opening quieted his reply, which Natasha was grateful for. Her scar pulsed with pleasure at the sound of her name on his lips, and she wanted to push that emotion far, far away. This wasn't the time or place for that. This wasn't about wanting him or wanting the pleasure he could give her. This was about control, and she was going to have it again.

She worked one finger inside of him, finding him tight and anxious at her touch. She had thought about rimming him first, tongue working him loose to make this easier. That had been dismissed almost immediately, since she had already been gentle. Loki grasped at the furs, pressing his face into them as he took gasping breaths. Natasha could feel when the anxiety bled out of him, when he loosened up underneath her hands. Her breath was warm and moist across his lower back, and she pressed her lips against the curve of his spine as she curled her finger into the spot where his prostate would be. Loki jerked, gasping in surprised pleasure.

At that, she moved back and smiled at his strained reaction. She poured more lube over her fingers, the snap of the cap impossibly loud in the room. Pulling her finger back slightly, she twisted it and added a second one. Loki groaned, fingers flexing and his hips trembling at the intrusion. "You're doing so well," Natasha said softly, a gentle and soothing tone that seemed to set him at ease. "Look at yourself, Loki. You're mine, aren't you? Like this, bent beneath me, you're all mine."

"Hng," he groaned into the furs, his eyes clenched shut. His hips pushed back into her hand, which told her more than words could say. She worked the two fingers in and out in a smooth, rhythmic motion, her other hand braced at his hip to keep herself balanced as she knelt behind him. Loki's breathing was harsh and ragged, fingers spastically clutching at the fur beneath him. "I..." He whimpered as her fingers pushed into his prostate again. "Ah..."

"Are you begging me yet, Loki?" Natasha asked in a satisfied purr. 

"N-no," he murmured, eyes opening. She could see him look up at her with a desperation she had never seen before. "I will not beg. I do not ever beg."

"We'll see, won't we?" she asked pleasantly, bending her face down to the skin of his back as she continued the steady thrusting of her fingers. Loki made a strangled sound, head tilting back and away from the furs slightly. "Can you imagine what you look like now?" she asked in that soft, crooning tone she had used. Loki shuddered, and not just because of the way she stroked him from the inside out. "Bent but proud, shaking because of how I have you. You're mine, Loki. It's just a matter of time before you realize that. You're mine, you'll always be mine."

Loki made a soft choking noise, body trembling beneath her hands. The sound turned despairing as she leaned back, but then there was the sound of the tube of lube opening, and the squelching sound of it being squirted over her fingers again. He made another choking noise when she scissored a third finger inside him, but he trembled and strained to take it without complaint. "I could probably get my entire hand inside you, couldn't I?" Natasha commented, making soothing strokes across his lower back with her free hand. "Would you like that? Taking all of me inside you, pleasing me with how much you can take?" His head twitched in something like a nod against the furs. "And you could, Loki. I know you could. You're so good like this, taking me in, feeling all of it..."

His cock continually twitched inside of the cage, but was still trapped in a mostly-but-not-quite erect state. Loki groaned and twisted, likely from the sensation of the metal around his cock and her three fingers sliding in and out of his ass. His eyes were shut tight again, furs caught tightly in his white-knuckled grip. "N-N-Na," he gasped, twitching beneath her. He made a soft keening noise when she kissed the small of his back, the fabric of her sweater brushing against his skin. It must have felt rough against his skin compared to the fur.

"Beg me, Loki," Natasha demanded.

"No," he gasped. "I _won't."_

She withdrew all of her fingers at once, making him groan in frustrated desire. He turned to look at her, seeing her wipe her hands clean with one of his furs. Loki watched in fascinated dread as she took out a harness and dildo, audibly swallowing at the sight of it. She had brought an assortment of sizes and even ball gags, but she wanted to hear him moaning, and this particular dildo seemed a good enough size to start with. Natasha smiled sweetly at him, and started to buckle the harness on. "You can tell what this is," she said in that sultry tone he responded so much to. "You know I'm going to fuck you with it."

Loki's breath hitched. "Yes."

Her smile was wide and delighted. "Let's begin."

Guiding the dildo to his ass, she liberally applied lube and gently pushed inside. Loki held his breath for a moment, but Natasha massaged his back until he stopped tensing up. She slid the dildo in the rest of the way, until it was fully seated inside of him. His breathing was shallow, so she massaged his back and the sides of his thighs. "You're ready for me," she said softly as she stroked him. "You're more than ready, aching for this."

He let out an unsteady breath and turned his head to look at her, a desperate expression on his face. "Please," he whimpered. "Natasha, please."

She pulled her hips back slowly, scratching at his side gently with her blunt nails. "Please what?"

The furs were caught tightly between his hands, as if he would rip them apart before acquiescing and begging for release. But her movements were too slow, and he couldn't help the low whine deep in his throat. "Please, Natasha. You unman me this way. Give me release."

Pushing her hips forward, Natasha leaned over so that she could run her fingers through his hair. "You want to come."

 _"Yes,"_ he ground out through grit teeth. "This cannot stand. _Please."_

Still leaning forward as far as she could, Natasha wiggled her hips a little, sending the dildo rocking deeply inside of him. Loki's eyes fluttered shut and he groaned, arching back into her as if he could force the toy even further in. She curled her hand around his throat, nails scraping the skin gently. Holding him there, she thrust shallowly, making him cry out in frustration. "Natasha, please," he nearly sobbed. "I _cannot..."_ He said something in a low tone, unintelligible and likely Asgardian. His fingers twitched and spasmed as he tried to buck backward into her, intending to force her into a faster rhythm. "Give me release," he demanded.

"That's not begging."

Loki made a frustrated sound deep in his throat as he bucked his hips beneath her. He murmured something then, almost a singsong chanting rhythm, and Natasha scratched his throat hard, making him stop. "No magic," she warned. "You understand that, Loki. You know the rules. You always know the rules. And you know what I want from you. I can give you what you want, what you need, if you just ask me to."

"I want release," he nearly sobbed. "Natasha, _please,_ I haven't the words, I don't know to ask, I can't... I need this, I _need_ this." His fingers scrabbled across the furs but he didn't dare reach back to touch her. He looked at her in anguish, eyes shining in the firelight. "Please," he whispered, voice cracking. "Please."

She made a soft soothing noise, then took her hand from his throat. Massaging his back gently, she shifted her hips back and then deeply _in,_ making him howl in pleasure. Natasha moved hard and fast now, the edge of the harness hitting her pubic bone almost painfully. She was at the wrong angle to try to hit her own clit, but getting off wasn't the point of the whole exercise. Loki moaned and writhed beneath her hands, arching back as she fucked him. With one hand on his hip for balance, she shifted to release the cock cage. He groaned in response and nearly cried out when she closed her fist around his weeping cock. "I'm the one fucking you now, Loki. You're mine." She tightened her fist, making him moan when her fingers brushed across the head. "This is mine. I'm the one that can let you come. And I want you to come, Loki. You've been so good, so good, you can come now. You can let go, have that release..."

With a shiver, Loki spilled across her fist. He muffled his cries with the furs before his upper body collapsed down. She still held his hip and cock in her hand, keeping his lower body pinned in place. Slowly, she let go of him and withdrew, then took off the harness. Loki fell bonelessly down to his pile of furs, panting and unable to open his eyes to look at her. 

Natasha pulled his limp form against her, his head pressed against her chest. He could hear the steady, lulling sound of her heartbeat, and that relaxed him. She made soft shushing sounds, comforting him as he trembled, clutching at her arms. He was coming down hard from the encounter, shaken by it. For all his talk about rule, there was some part of him that forever would be looking for this, for that perfect moment where he could let go of everything that troubled him. All of his bluster was unnecessary here.

"I've got you," she said in a soothing voice. "I've got you."

For a long time, he simply lay there against her. She could almost feel when he curled in on himself, barriers snapping back into place. Something blazed uncomfortably in his eyes when he looked at her. He pulled away, reaching for his robe. Natasha grasped his arm and pulled him close, kissing him softly on the mouth. He felt distant, still, not quite out of his headspace, not quite back to the image of malevolence that he wanted to project. "Thank you for this gift," she whispered against his lips.

He searched her expression for any sign of artiface, but there was none. Loki grasped her face in his hands and kissed her cheeks and nose and eyes and mouth, something like desperation in his touch. Then he wrenched himself away from her, pulling the green robe tightly around him and crossing his arms over his chest. He couldn't face her, and didn't say anything when she asked if he wanted her to stay. When she touched his arm, he let out an unsteady breath.

"I'll give you a new crystal and open a portal," he said, his voice hoarse. "I need time."

"However much you need," Natasha replied with a nod. She started cleaning off everything as he moved to his desk to fashion a new crystal pendant. He touched her hip, his lower lip caught between his lip in uncertainty. She reached up to touch it, but then he shifted away from her touch. "Loki..."

"I'll see you again, Natasha," he murmured, opening a portal behind her. She turned and saw that it would lead her directly to her quarters in Avengers Tower. "There is much work to do."

"There always is," she agreed, picking up her bag.

She left without a farewell, and the portal closed quietly behind her.

***

Natasha had found a slip of parchment in her pocket with an address, no name attached to it. The address matched one of the AIM storehouses that she had been looking into, which seemed to be all the confirmation that she needed to set up a raid. Clint was with her, of course, and she was very pleasantly surprised by the rest of the Avengers teaming up with them. "What? And miss the party?" Tony Stark said, snapping his helmet faceplate into place.

The flunkies were too easy to subdue, and it wasn't long before most of them were corralled into one of the building's many conference rooms. Natasha saw one of the men crawling out of the room, and followed him. She found another knot of guards in a separate room that looked fairly innocuous. Still, guards in an otherwise empty room meant there had to be a secret compartment, so she attacked them at once. When they were knocked out, she trussed them with telephone wire and dragged their limp bodies off to the side. Patting them down didn't reveal any keycards or any clues concerning what they were guarding.

She was examining the walls and in the process of pulling out one of her knives when Clint walked in. He stared at Natasha with a gimlet eye. "Natasha," he said in a low voice, not wanting to draw additional attention to her. "Where did you get those?"

Suppressing the urge to roll her eyes at him, Natasha gestured at the wall with the knife in her hand. "They're the same ones I always use."

"No, they're not," he insisted. There was sincere worry on his face, something that gave her pause. She hadn't seen that expression in a long time. "Natasha..."

Thor approached them, likely to see if there were further targets to track down. He took in Natasha holding the knife in her hand, the knocked out and trussed up guards, her nonchalance and Clint's concern. "Lady Natasha," he said in as gentle a voice as she had ever heard from him, "how did you come by my brother's blade?"

She frowned at him. "What are you talking about?" she asked, not unkindly. "This is mine." Gesturing toward the wall behind her, her frown deepened. "One of the men was heading here, so I was looking for a false panel. Unless one of the others out there happened to tell you how to open it, I suggest you let me work."

"That is my brother's blade," Thor insisted. There was a stillness about him, a battle readiness that she recognized from before they had stormed the compound.

Clint recognized it as well and quickly intervened. "Let me take a look at that, then," he said, holding out a hand for Natasha. "Use a different one, or hell, take one of those guys' sidearms and just bash in the wall if you want."

Now she did roll her eyes at him, the corner of her mouth quirked. "You're being ridiculous, but fine." Tossing the blade a little, she caught it by the tang and handed it over hilt first. "This is from the same set that I had made to my specifications..."

Her voice trailed off as Clint grasped the hilt and drew the knife away from her. It wasn't hers. It was Loki's.

The three of them stared at the knife in Clint's hands. Natasha could feel the burn in her wrists and the L-shaped scar on her abdomen, a low pulse thrumming through her like the heavy baseline in a dance club. She looked from Clint to Thor. "I was holding my own knife. How did that happen?"

Thor's stance shifted slightly, apparently now confident that Natasha wasn't simply Loki in disguise from a spell. "My brother likely ensorcelled you. A glamour would have fooled the rest of us."

She wanted to ask what was the point of that, but it was likely just to prove that he could, that she had no protection against his magic. "So now what?"

"He has an infatuation with you," Thor said, clearly uncomfortable by the thought. "Not such as I have with Jane, but something more... sinister. I could speak with my mother, try to find out if she could weave spells of protection over you."

"If he wanted to kill me, he could have done so a dozen times over by now," Natasha said, voice flattened and emotionless. Clint looked at her with concern, but she didn't spare him a glance.

"There are worse things he could do to you," Clint murmured.

 _Do you know what it's like to be remade? To be emptied out and utterly changed?_ he had asked her before the Battle of New York.

 _You know I do,_ she had replied, meaning every syllable.

There were always worse things than death.

"Let me speak with my mother," Thor said quietly, holding his hand out for Loki's knife. Clint handed it over without a word, and Natasha merely nodded. "I would have my friends safe from his influence, whatever his plans may be."

Something twisted in her gut at Thor's use of the word "friends," right where the L-shaped scar was. There was an urge to scream at him, to shout that she had no friends, it was all a lie. It wouldn't be true, but it would wound him deeper than Loki's blade would.

Natasha pressed her lips shut to stop the words from spilling forth.

"I know you don't like this," Clint began, putting a hand on her arm. "We don't know how magic works. He could have put some kind of spell on you, all those times he grabbed you and yanked you God knows where."

"Some kind of hiding place," Natasha said, the urge to rail at them passing. "It could be something to cloud my vision, perhaps," she murmured. She didn't know how the spell casting would work, but there was plenty of opportunity as he fucked her to push spells into her. For all she knew, he could have laced his come with something.

"If he affected your eyes, it would be subtle," Thor agreed, nodding as he tucked away the knife. "Something few would notice, even if they were skilled in the arts."

Loki had licked her closed eyelids on a few occasions, or had kissed them. It could have been then. It might not have been. There was no way for her to tell.

"We're with you, Tash," Clint murmured in a low tone. There was the almost braying voice of Tony in the Iron Man armor in the next room, telling one of the captives that he didn't need their help, he could likely hack their system on his own. "Whatever Loki's plans are, we're not letting you go into it alone."

Natasha raised her eyes toward Thor, eyebrow raised. "Even knowing that they want to somehow bring him into the fold? That I need to make sure he works with us?"

Thor sighed, and she felt terrible for causing that plaintive sound. He still loved Loki, even as he deplored the trickster's actions. He still considered Loki his brother, still wanted him settled and safe somewhere, but not troubling humanity any longer. "The Allfather is aware of the plans. He isn't pleased, and is sure that your world would not be safe with such an agreement in place. But your world is your own. I help protect it, but I will not rule it. I will not override the wishes of those already ruling this realm."

Honorable words from an honorable man. Natasha's gut twisted again, and she wondered how much of Loki was twisting inside of her, corrupting her. Fury sent her on this because of Loki's interest and knowing that she could play whatever role was needed. She could be the bad guy in this if she had to be. Her world was nothing but secrets and shades of gray, an existence of lies and subterfuge. Thor didn't know what she was doing and likely wouldn't want to know the details. Fury didn't care as long as he got results.

Clint still had his hand on her arm and gave it a supportive squeeze. Anyone else would use this time to say some kind of platitude like _It's going to be okay,_ even when it clearly wasn't. They didn't have time for that kind of childish nonsense. Clint knew as well as she did what had to be done, and the sacrifices made to make it happen. The squeeze was his way of saying _I'm with you,_ but she couldn't drag him down through this.

Whatever Loki had planned, she was going to have to go it alone.

***

Natasha wasn't terribly surprised when Loki fell into step beside her when she was going shopping downtown. He was dressed in black jeans, a black leather jacket and a forest green shirt that brought out the color of his eyes. It matched her casual wear almost exactly, so she smiled warmly. The expression on his face wasn't playful at all, however, and she lofted an eyebrow at him. "Did something happen?"

"I don't need you," he replied, voice clipped with anger.

She returned the apples she was picking out and held onto her basket firmly. There was anger in his eyes, but that looked more like the anger he had when he realized she had tricked him on the helicarrier. It wasn't quite the same thing as hating her, but still it was uncomfortable to see that in his eyes again. "What are we talking about? Were you walking on Yggdrasil?"

If anything, that seemed to make him angrier. "It matters not."

Reaching out to touch his arm, Natasha shook her head. She was gratified that he didn't shake off her touch, and she chose not to examine why that was. "You matter, Loki."

"I am not your plaything," he hissed.

"Do you think I feel that way?" she asked quietly, taking in his demeanor. Something happened, obviously, and he didn't feel nearly as close to her as he had weeks earlier. "Or is it that you think I'm your plaything? Is that why I saw your knives as my own?"

His lips twitched, a momentary spasm of a smile. "That was some time ago. You didn't notice."

The pride in his voice sent chills down her spine. "So what is it, Loki?"

She watched the way his nostrils flared slightly before he blew out a breath. Asking him how she could help would be counterproductive or patronizing. He wouldn't tolerate either in this kind of mood, though she couldn't tell what had triggered it. The most Natasha could do was hold onto him, reinforcing whatever connection they had.

That didn't seem to work. He leaned in close to her, eyes narrowing. "You cannot command me. You are mortal. I controlled you. I _bested_ you."

"Yes, you did," she said quietly. No point in denying that. There was never a point to denying that. It happened, she moved on.

 _"You_ need _me._ You need my help to find your duplicitous comrade. You need me to track down the errant magicians on your paltry little realm. You are _nothing_ without me, little spider," he spit, trembling with the force of his sudden rage.

Natasha clamped down tightly on the emotion that threatened to bubble forth. "What—"

"Lady, are you okay?"

She and Loki turned to see a tough looking biker in leather and tattoos nearby, staring at her in concern. Being taller than Natasha and in an intimidating stance, Loki looked like an abusive boyfriend to this stranger, and he obviously wanted to step in and help. Who said chivalry was dead in New York?

As Natasha's scar pulsed in displeasure, Loki sent forth a concussive wave of magic. The biker went flying, and Natasha nearly let go of her basket in surprise at the depth of rage she could feel in the blast. Everyone in the store stared in shock and horror. The biker wasn't moving from where he had fallen.

"You are _mine,_ and _you_ need _me._ Never forget that," Loki hissed as he yanked his arm away from her. In an instant, he disappeared from view.

Well, damn. Fury wasn't going to like this development at her next scheduled report.

She dismissed the idea of reporting early and dropped her basket to jog to the biker's side. She found a pulse, fluttering and weak. "Call 911!" she called out to the stunned bystanders.

No, no need to contact Fury early. He would find out about this event soon enough.

***

Thor found Natasha as soon as she got to Avengers Tower from her meeting with Director Fury, concern clearly written on his face. "Lady Natasha," he began. He had been pacing for nearly an hour, and she could see the worn tread in the carpet. "How do you fare?"

"Alive, obviously," she intoned. "The bystander will live, too. Massive concussion, some internal bleeding. Surgeons were able to stop it. He doesn't have a spleen anymore, but humans don't need one to live."

He nodded thoughtfully at her rapid fire report. "The Captain had the news on. We saw the surveillance footage in the store. You were not identified, but it was clear who had caused the damage even if the news reporters will not name him."

Natasha didn't bother to suppress a sigh. "Something happened. It's not related to the knife incident. He claimed he did that a while ago just to see when I would notice."

If anything, that made Thor look even more disconcerted. "He has foul intentions toward you. My lady mother doesn't feel comfortable with your Director's plan any longer. She doubts that my brother can be contained."

"That's the thing, Thor. It's not a question of containment. If your people couldn't do it, no one can. No, it's a question of getting his loyalties to shift, if he can care for someone other than himself, even just a little."

Thor gathered her up into a hug, and she had to fight the urge to push him away. She stood stiffly, but that didn't seem to matter to him. Her scars burned in pain, furious at the prolonged contact with Thor. They tugged at her, twisting her flesh, making her shut her eyes to keep tears from falling. Thor would misunderstand them, and she didn't want him thinking she was crying because of Loki. He didn't matter to her in that way.

"I hope he is capable of such. I fear for you, my friend. I truly do." He finally let her go, a heartbreakingly earnest expression still on his face. "I would help, however you deem it necessary, just as our comrade Barton had done. He is my brother, and I would fix the damage he creates if I can."

She pasted a smile on her face for Thor's benefit. "I know. You're a good man."

The pain redoubled, making her want to throw up. Definitely Loki's influence trying to exert itself over her, which was frightening. She valued her control, and even the thought of losing it was terrifying.

And Loki knew that.

Natasha hurried to her suite of rooms and locked herself in. Leaning against the wall, she shoved a fist into her mouth and bit down hard. No, that felt the same. Everything else felt the same, even if her reflexes were faster than they used to be and she had scars trying to inflict pain to get her to change her behavior. It almost felt as though she was still caught in the Red Room's clutches, before Clint had decided to bring her into SHIELD, but they were gone. She had eliminated all of the men in charge of the program.

Still, she could feel the ghostly press of a Makarov in her palm, one of the directors towering over her and telling her to shoot. She could remember the terrified girl that was supposed to be her opponent. She remembered pulling the trigger until the magazine was empty. There had been an empty, yawning ache inside her chest at the bloodied remains of the other girl, though she sometimes had wondered if it really happened. Her memory wasn't clear, her control wasn't absolute. Was she losing her grip on the situation?

Pulling her hand from her mouth, she went to the bathroom and mechanically stripped off all of her clothing. She turned on the shower until it was piping hot and stood under the spray until she couldn't bear it any longer.

Out of the shower, she felt a little more put together. Her memories, fragmented as they were, didn't threaten to overtake her present. It was Loki being so unstable, she knew. Most of her targets had some kind of method to their madness, so to speak. She could predict where they would strike next, what their motives were, what she could do to change them. Loki was so mercurial, she was having trouble pinning it down.

This couldn't bode well for her or SHIELD. Fury had still left it as her call to make, with only vague remarks about "others with concern." She couldn't ponder who was talking to Fury or asking about Loki's progress. She couldn't afford to second guess her strategy at this point; she was too deeply caught in her own web to break it now.

***  
***


	5. Endgame

"I may have been too hasty with my anger," Loki said stiffly, suddenly appearing beside Natasha in a warehouse she had been investigating.

She didn't deign that with a reply, as she was busy going through the warehouse's records. When he didn't move, she placed her finger under the entry she was reading. "That bystander will live, by the way," she told him in a flat tone of voice.

"One of your fabled innocents?"

"They do exist."

"So you've told me," he acknowledged.

"Why are you here now?" she asked, eyebrow lofted at him.

"Are you so unaffected by my display of anger?" he asked, his head tilting to the side as he contemplated her. "I have helped you in the past, and then to turn..."

"You did say you would," Natasha replied slowly.

"Of course I would threaten you," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. He straightened his posture and gave her a charming smile. "Do you think this is what I do now?"

"Aren't you?"

Loki laughed, and Natasha waited patiently for it to pass. Her scars seemed to want her to put the ledger aside and touch him, run her fingers through his hair and state that she trusted him. A much more sane part of her knew that for the folly it was.

"Let me make it up to you, little spider. I have information on where your conspirator is currently hiding. It isn't in these storehouses or amongst agents of your ilk."

"Why don't you just find him and hand him over, then?"

"Where is the fun in that? He is no challenge, dear spider. He sits, drowning in his own fear, and there is no pleasure in watching that."

No, Loki liked challenges. Puzzles and convoluted plots were the kind of thing he was drawn to, not the simple open and shut extortion that seemed to be what Meissen was interested in.

***

The office space was wide open, with large plate glass windows to let in light on a good day. Normally this would be a good quality for an accounting firm, letting the poor cubicle jockeys get some natural lighting. In this particular case, the windows had been a liability. There was no way for the accountants to get out of the way or hide from the people that stormed the office, intent on slaughter.

Natasha had doubts that the killers were even human anymore, but kept those thoughts to herself.

The team had arrived too late to save anyone in the office, and all of the servers had been wiped clean with a virus introduced just prior to the slaughter. Techs were hopeful they could recover _something,_ but that wasn't Hydra's way. If they couldn't use a resource, they preferred to destroy it so no one else could.

She gingerly picked her way through the carnage, seeing bloody handprints on the fabric of the cubicle dividers. One accountant had his keyboard embedded in his skull; someone could probably calculate the odds that human hands did that, but Natasha assumed it was very low. Too many dead eyes stared out of frightened expressions, accusing her of not getting there in time.

More red in her ledger, even if she hadn't wielded the knife personally.

Natasha saw a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye, no more than shadows shifting, and turned to look. She saw a figure that was more like a spindly corpse, her chin pointed and lips drawn back in a bitter smile. Her eyes were no more than shadows in her too-pale face, her dark hair a curtain all around her head like a halo. She wore elaborate ceremonial robes with runes in the pattern, and the air behind her shimmered in the same way that Loki's portals did. The figure nodded her head at Natasha in formal greeting, much the way equals on opposing sides would, then she stepped behind her into the portal. It closed around her, vanishing just as Natasha realized there was a resemblance to Loki in the dead woman's features.

"The hell, Tash?" Clint asked, coming up behind her. He was disturbed by the sight they had walked into, and she wasn't sure if he had seen the ghostly figure standing over the dead that she had just seen. Hel, if she recalled her Norse mythology correctly. Sif had said that the residents of Helheim claimed to be kinfolk to Loki. Some of the old tales had a basis in fact, after all.

"This wasn't supposed to be like this," she told him in a low voice. "We were supposed to have access to the servers." Her jaw tightened. "I'm sure we'll hear lovely lies to explain this."

"The Council's going to find an excuse to blame this on you."

"Yeah," Natasha agreed, feeling her stomach plummet to her toes. "It's my op."

"You weren't trained for this..." Clint protested, ever the loyal friend.

"I should have anticipated this." Because really, Red Room operatives _were_ skilled in all manner of death and seduction. She wasn't troubled by the death surrounding her, only by the fact that it hadn't been planned.

"Natasha..."

"Fury left this on me a long time ago. I had to make the call."

Clint was visibly disturbed by the flat, fatalistic tone she took with him. She so rarely got this way; this meant she didn't feel able to get out of this quandary on her own, and she was entering survival mode. Natasha would never ask him to offer up his services to help her, as that would introduce too much risk for him. If he tried to do anything else she didn't plan for, she wouldn't accept it.

"Don't give up," he began in a low voice, aware that the other agents were still cataloguing the dead and taking photos to piece events back together later.

"Loki has something to answer for," she told him, voice still flat.

"Will you even get an answer?"

"There's only one way to find out."

Before he could stop her, she seized the amulet around her neck and yanked it off. She let go of it in the same movement, dashing it to the ground. The crystal smashed open on the linoleum floor, releasing a thick, almost gaseous substance. It coated Natasha and pulled her _between,_ back toward Loki in his hidden hideaway.

Natasha was _angry._ She had been played for a fool, as if she was simply a pawn in some kind of cosmic game. It was one thing to expect treachery and find it, and a completely different situation when she had actually started to trust the trickster and find out just how thoroughly she had been played. Her reputation was on the line, rather like Clint's had been when she had been brought in. The difference was, she respected and liked Clint, valuing his friendship and opinion. This made it clear that Loki didn't respect hers.

Loki was lounging on a fur-covered chair, reading a scroll covered in runes that looked like they were written in blood. Amused at whatever he was reading, he didn't even look up when Natasha appeared in his domain. "So soon?" he asked, the drawl grating against her ears.

She ripped the parchment from his hands, tossing it aside. "They were all dead."

"Mortals are terribly fragile." There was no concern in his voice at all, and his eyes were flat and emotionless when they looked at her.

Natasha recognized that look. It was her own expression from her Red Room days. This was how she had appeared to others back then.

"The point was to keep those mortals alive, Loki."

He shrugged. "There are more of them. Billions of them. What was the dozen or so of them to you? You didn't know their names, did you? There was no personal relationship." Loki's expression was bland, but Natasha's insides roiled. "They were nothing. Pawns. Nameless, faceless sacks of flesh."

She thought of the man with the keyboard embedded in his face, the terrorized looks and the gaping mouths. They had been terrified, out of their depth. None of them had been Hydra agents, just a group of accountants that had been the unwitting cover story for an information repository. Hydra didn't care either. They were no more than collateral damage, numbers on a sheet of paper if Hydra considered them at all.

She might not have cared about the deaths she had left in her wake in her prior lifetime, but at least those deaths had been more personal.

"They were people. There were families and lives that were just eliminated because it was inconvenient to keep them alive."

"They were nothing," Loki repeated in a bored tone. He rose and went to a bookcase to retrieve a different scroll. "They don't matter in the grand scheme of things. Your superiors don't even care that they're dead."

But she wanted them to. They had to be better than that. How else could she wipe her ledger clean? How else could she undo all the damage she had done?

"This was not what we agreed upon. This wasn't supposed to happen!" Natasha cried, pulling this scroll out of his hands as well. Something was breaking inside of her, some nameless hope she shouldn't have allowed herself to have dying an agonized death.

"Did you really think I would _help_ you?" Loki asked, eyebrow raised.

She was upset, throwing things and tearing apart his scrolls as if she was a child. Her temper had never broken like this, not since she was a child before the Red Room caught hold of her. She couldn't even really remember that, not as anything more than the shadow of a memory, a vague and fragile thing recovered through months of hard work piecing her life back together from the fragments on record. Too much of her memory was emptiness, gaps where she filled in the blanks with educated guesses rather than actual memory.

"You're nothing," Loki said in measured tones when her rage burned itself out. "You're no better than those fools were, just a tool to be used." He leaned in, aware of her growing ire and grinning in the face of it. "And possibly a broken one, at that."

"What is the point of doing this?" Natasha raged, gritting her teeth as she scowled at him.

"The point?" Loki scoffed. "Who said there had to be a point?" His eyes glittered dangerously as he stepped closer and grasped her jaw. Natasha couldn't help but feel that she was poised over a knife's edge, just waiting to fall.

"There's _always_ a point," she snapped, frustrated. "You don't operate without one, even if I don't know what it is."

"There are so many things you don't know, little spider," he murmured, pushing her so hard that she actually fell to the floor. "I've told you this so many times. You are just another broken, useless thing. I've done what I could, of course. The spells and suggestions did the job they were intended, but when there isn't enough to work with..." His voice trailed off as he contemplated her, lip curling slightly in disgust and disappointment. "I don't have the time to fix things properly, there's far too much to do."

Natasha struggled to her feet, but suddenly she felt weighted down. Had he cast some kind of spell while she had been having a reckless tantrum? Had he really layered her with spells and suggestions to change her? No, she would have felt that, wouldn't she? Though she hadn't known it when the Red Room made her and remade her. Years of that, and there had been no whisper of wrongness until the very end, when their programming didn't take well enough. Was Loki's spell work much the same way? Her breath stuttered in her chest, and she looked at him, unable to do any more than seethe.

Loki nodded as if she had said something. "I don't think there's any use for you here."

Finally there was breath enough in her chest to speak. "Then I'll go back..."

"Who said any of your colleagues can trust you now?"

There it was, the slice in her chest that was almost as sharp as the blades he carried. That was the point, then. That was what this was about. She had deceived him, flayed his plans and used his prejudices against him. What else could he do but repay her in kind? It was a long game, she had to give him that, but he was patient when he had to be, and his lifespan was best measured in centuries, not years. He could afford to wait until her guard was down, until he could worm his way into SHIELD defenses properly.

"So that's your play," she murmured, eyes locked to his.

His grin was painful to look at. "So that's my play." He leaned in close and whispered right next to her ear. "I told you what I was after from the very beginning. I want you to know I've bested you. That I am a god you cannot defeat."

Natasha had no reply. He was right, he had told that the first time they had fought, when he had attacked her at her safe house. He had never lied, she just hadn't believed him. He had used _her_ prejudices about him against her.

"They already call you the 'Black Widow problem' in meetings. No one trusts you any longer, if they ever truly did. That dripping body count they never forgave you for, I believe. They were just waiting for you to betray them, and now you have. There's a holding cell waiting for you when you get back." He leaned back, a smug expression on his face as he observed her. "Which will be soon."

He laughed as the horror dawned in her eyes, and the manic laughter continued as he clutched her unresisting arm and pulled her _between._ The void of his portal gave way to a conference room on the Helicarrier. Natasha didn't resist as Loki threw her onto the floor beside Fury and Hill. She didn't look up to see who else was seated around the table. All she could see were dress shoes and dress pant legs, and it occurred to her that perhaps the World Council was now telling Fury "I told you so." She was dangerous. She had always been dangerous, but that was what had made her useful before.

Before Loki, at least.

"I've solved your problem, Director," Loki chortled as he stepped backward through his rip in the fabric of space and time. "Enjoy her well. I know I did."

Natasha let her eyes slide closed. Footsteps approached, and she didn't resist as they picked her up, cuffed her and led her to the waiting cell for processing, just as Loki had promised.

She had fallen for his plays, she was compromised. There was nowhere else she belonged.

***

It wasn't a huge surprise to see Clint at the door to her cell, key to her cuffs in hand. "Hey," he murmured, stepping inside. Guards swung the door shut behind him, and they were no doubt on alert with assault weapons. She was dangerous, after all, and nanomesh armor wouldn't stop large caliber bullets for long.

Natasha stared at Clint. He didn't show any fear as he approached her, just as she hadn't when he had been the one under Loki's spell. "Hey," she said after a moment, eyes dropping to the floor. She let him uncuff her, but otherwise didn't move.

"He did a number on you, didn't he?"

It was on the tip of her tongue to say _You know what that's like,_ but she couldn't do that to Clint. All she did was nod, eyes still on the floor. "I'm compromised."

"You know, I'm not thinking you are."

Her head shot up at the quiet words. "Of course I am. I can't be trusted."

"I'm sure that was his point, but look at who you're talking to."

She didn't move as he sat down beside her, not quite touching. It would have been too much to bear at the moment, and he understood that. "There are ways to get around it, you know that. You've been made and unmade and reprogrammed..."

Natasha glared at Clint. "I can't go through that again. I _won't."_

"Which means he didn't do it to you," Clint replied evenly. "Because if he had, I'm sure you wouldn't react so badly right now to the idea. You wouldn't have let us take you in. You would have taken out everyone in that conference room and you'd be frisking my dead body for possible weapons to get out of here." He sighed at the stubborn tilt of her mouth. "Think, Natasha. _Think._ He's a master manipulator. He didn't have to get into your head. All he has to do is make you think he did." He clasped her hand in his, feeling her cold fingers. "I still trust you."

"You shouldn't."

"I took a chance years ago. I'm willing to do it again."

"More fool you," she said bitterly, eyes sliding away from their linked hands.

"Don't do that to yourself," Clint murmured, squeezing her fingers tightly. "We know what Loki's capable of, and we know what you're capable of."

"Deception. Betrayal."

"Maybe, but not for us. Not to _me._ The rest of us that count, we're with you. We're not falling for this trick. If he wanted to break up the team, this won't do it." He paused slightly. "He's making you want to walk away. You can't give up on yourself, not like this."

Natasha turned over their linked hands and showed her wrists. "He sliced them open and put them back together. He carved into me. He fucked with me and fucked me. What if he left something behind? Just a sliver, just enough to make me doubt..."

"I know how that feels," Clint admitted softly. "They're going to send you to the same shrink I worked with, probably." Her eyes jerked up to his and he shrugged. "It feels different. Like it's not your thought in your head, not your intention, not your action. It feels like you've been given a shove in a different direction, and you're watching yourself move."

"I don't feel that," Natasha murmured. "But it didn't feel like that when the Red Room made me over a thousand times. I was whoever they meant me to be."

"Right now, you're who you're meant to be. Cautious and loyal. If you betray someone, it's part of the job, for a higher purpose. It's part of being a spy."

"Maybe I shouldn't be one anymore."

Clint gave her a crooked grin and let go of her hand to slide his arm around her shoulders. "There's plenty of other things for you to do than be other people and skulk around in the shadows. Someone has to keep Stark in line. You know how he constantly needles everyone in sight. Pepper needs help shutting him up."

Natasha laughed and leaned into his embrace. She let her eyes slide shut, feeling hollow and worn thin. At least being an Avenger was easy. There was no need to take on another skin and wear a personality like a coat. Point her in the right direction, and there she went. The others would help her through this, if she let them.

And right now, she wanted that so badly. She needed that support, as much as she didn't want to take it.

"I've learned how to handle Stark when I was Natalie Rushman," Natasha said finally, the syllables feeling strange in her mouth.

"There we go. All kinds of weapons, all kinds of skills. Loki didn't change that about you. He can't. Even magic has its limitations."

She would keep it in mind for next time. Because undoubtedly, there would be a next time. And next time, she would really be ready.

The End


End file.
